For the Rest of Our Lives
by Eridanus1123
Summary: Innumerable sprigs of mistletoe, seven friends, one house, and a clock on some kind of drugs. Months after the events of the year before, seven Hogwartians get together and plan out the rest of their lives. Sequel to 'the Grape Vine that is Hogwarts'
1. Welcome to the Beginning

_Hello, my lovelies! Welcome to another few weeks/months (depending on how lazy I am) of Dramione-time! Oh, how I've missed you all. _

_A few things need to be cleared up before we delve in. Sorry. Firstly, I need to apologise for the delay. It's official. _I am _not_ dead, disappeared or somehow suddenly illiterate_. I said a week or two. It's been slightly longer than that. _

_Also, let's just ignore everything JKR has ever said about birthdays, and pretend that none of them are seventeen yet. And don't ask about the drinking age. Everything's whack in this story. _

_This fic is in multiple perspectives. Just so you know. In case the bold didn't help you figure that out. The italic-ed bits are just random third person. Again, just so you know. So, three perspectives. The Draco-centred third person of the last one – of course; Hermione's POV, and an omniscient descriptive thing-o generally used to show the conversations D or Hr can't eavesdrop on. _

_Oh, and welcome, new readers. If you hear anyone rambling about a story called 'The Grape Vine that is Hogwarts', it was a precursor to this story, but is by no means necessary to understanding the plot. I don't think._

_Other than that, I believe my rambling well has run dry. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did writing it. And so, we begin. Again._

_Eridanus_

* * *

_**For the Rest of Our Lives**_

**Part I**

_Chapter 1_

_Welcome to the Beginning_

_The train heaved to a halt, and a rush of schoolchildren leaked out. Seven in particular hung back, casually dragging their feet until they were alone._

"_So, you'll come and fetch me?" confirmed the brunette with the crazy hair, and five people nodded. One winked at her, and ran his tongue across his lips seductively._

_She muttered an incomprehensible swear word to herself, before frantically pressing her lips against the boy's, and dashing off to her parents._

_The blonde boy, perpetrator of the lip-licking, would be staying with his friend for a day or two, until it started. They piled into his mother's limousine, unable to control their identical smug smirks, before it pulled away and sped through the sunlight._

**Draco**

Finally, the holidays. They shouldn't have made so much difference to him, since as long as Hermione was with him he'd be happy, but he was over the moon about what was coming. It was a cold day, one of those fabulous ones where everything is covering in a blanket of snow, although it was sinking into a powdery night time now. He and Blaise lounged lazily in Blaise's living room, perched haphazardly on plush red sofas with juice boxes. He was gracing Blaise's house with his presence for the first few days of the Christmas holidays, until the time came when they would relocate to_ his_ house... with a few additions, of course. There was a cartoon blaring on the strange picture box on the wall, but Draco was ignoring it and talking to Blaise instead.

"So, _you_ killed Pansy Parkinson, eh?" asked Blaise knowingly. "Can't believe you didn't tell me for all these months. But... congratulations. Always knew you had it in you."

"I did _not_," said Draco indignantly, and threw his scrunched-up juice box at Blaise's head. It was absolutely gay-arse, that rule about not using magic until their birthday, or else he would have transformed it into an anvil or something. _That_ surely would have shut him up.

"Yes, whatever you say, darling," said Blaise, waving a hand dismissively at him.

"'Darling'?" asked Draco, eyebrows raised just the right amount.

Blaise shrugged. "Would you rather I call you 'sugarpuss'?"

Draco didn't even want to know. So he conveniently changed the topic, remarking, "How's dear Kimberley going nowadays? Still short?"

"Of course," Blaise said, appearing to snort at the very idea of a change.

"She could grow," Draco reminded him.

"She better not," said Blaise, looking a little frantic at the idea. "She's the right height the way she is! I can lean on her."

"And I'm sure she loves that," added Draco sarcastically, casually flicking the mangled remains of his – third in ten minutes – juice box into the roaring fire. It shrivelled and curled until it was a tiny ball of black, which disintegrated once he prodded it with the fire poker.

Blaise recoiled. "Draco, I'm sorry, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, but get the bloody hell away from me with that thing."

"Why?" asked Draco innocently, twirling it around his finger expertly. At least, that's what he was doing until it flew across the room and embedded itself in the wall. He inspected it with clinical detachment, before shrugging and turning back to Blaise to await his answer.

Blaise had a look of distaste on his face as he flung a hand at the new wall ornament. "_That's_ why. And, Draco, do I _really_ need to bring up the incident with the poker in fourth year in the common room?"

"Oh, come _on_! Pomfrey fixed it up all right!"

"Reattached it, you mean," muttered Blaise darkly.

Draco waved a hand, feeling quite majestic, and announced, "Details, details. Oi, get me another one, will you? Grape, please."

"We're out of grape," said Blaise wearily. "You threw the last one at my head, remember?"

Draco laughed, like a naughty little child. "Oh yeah... I thought that was a tropical one. If I'd have known it was _grape_, I wouldn't have sacrificed it."

"When are they arriving? You need a babysitter who won't mind becoming detached from their body parts."

"I've always got you," said Draco fondly, just as a car horn started beeping obnoxiously.

They stood up simultaneously, and Draco opened the door just as Harry started to knock. His fist came very close to punching Draco in the nose, which Draco then screwed up in distaste.

"Sorry," said Harry hastily. "Look, we'd better hurry. Hermione's next, and you know how she is about time."

At his words, all three boys began to dash for the car. Strange invention, the hunk of metal. It had its advantages though, realised Draco, when loud music began to pump from the stereo.

Ron was sitting in the front seat, doing a weird gyrating dance while remaining seated.

_Thank Merlin_, thought Draco. _I'd hate to see what moves he'd bring out if he had full use of his legs and pelvis._

Once Ron noticed the three curious faces pressed up against the glass, and the two eye-rolling female ones behind him, he stopped dancing as an embarrassed flush ran up his neck.

"Well, well, well, Ronald," said Blaise conversationally as he climbed into the car. "Pumping out the moves, eh?"

"Shuddup," muttered Ron, stretching out his hand and turning down the music a tad. Only a tad, because Draco still hadn't regained the feeling in his ears.

Harry slid into the front seat, before being elbowed away by Ginny, who took his place and pulled away from the kerb. Blaise was engaging in some sort of super fast sweet talk with Kim in the very back seat, whispering rapidly into her ear while she leant back with a faint smile on her face.

Draco was officially bored. Hermione wasn't here, so he had nobody to elbow, or whisper sweet nothings to. Ron didn't have anyone here either. Not because she – or he – hadn't arrived yet, but because he was currently dipping his – uncommonly unclean – toes into the shallow pool of casual dating.

"How's it working out for you?" asked Draco, forgetting that, as Ron couldn't read his mind, he probably had no idea what he was on about.

However, his thoughts seemed to have been going in much the same direction, because he replied immediately, "Oh, good. I like Blondie better than Pat Benetar, though."

"Sorry?" asked Draco loudly, and every head – except Ginny's, but he distinctly saw her ears twitch to attention – whipped around to watch the exchange.

Ginny seemed to know this one, though. She responded, "Ronald's been hanging around at karaoke bars for his pick ups. He seems to think the women appreciate his 'One Way Or Another'."

"His what?" asked Draco blankly.

Ginny and Kim beamed at each other, and both started belting out some strange girly song. Blaise looked pained. Draco covered his ears, especially when Ron joined in.

Well, as it turned out, the words were fairly repetitive. By the time they pulled up in front of Hermione's house, forty-five minutes later, they'd hooked Draco and Blaise into singing as well. And it took a hell of a lot of hooking, and a promise of some making out later from Kim, to get Blaise, because his singing was like a cat being mowed over.

--

_A giggle cut through the clear cut night, shattering the mirror of silence that had been lying over the neighbourhood. It whistled through the trees, floating on the wind, although the girl had bitten her bottom lip to silence herself long before. _

_The creak of a rusty door swinging closed echoed after her, almost overtaking the sound of another stifled laugh. A car door slammed shut, an engine revved, and six people cheered loudly, once again breaking through the silence that had just begun to repair itself._

"_Hermione," breathed the redheaded girl, beaming widely from the driver's seat._

"_Hey Gin," said Hermione easily, leaning back into the leather exterior. It was typical, that Harry would have chosen such an expensive car. She knew that Ron would have been hanging over his shoulder when he chose it._

_The last person, sitting quietly in the back, had said nothing. Hermione turned around to smile shyly at him, and saw that the shine in his eyes betrayed his excitement._

"_Hi, Draco," she said._

_He realised that she was there, and jumped. He'd obviously been off in his own crazy world, thinking about something else – most likely Hermione. But once she was here, he patted the seat beside him, secretly replacing the seat with his lap and pulling her onto it. He pulled his seatbelt over her, too. Couldn't have her getting hurt, could he?_

_As he began to inform her on the details of a conversation he'd had with a hooker on the street a day before, he quickly squeezed her hand and smiled, just so she knew he loved her._

**Draco**

It was a long drive to his father's manor, seeing as they couldn't use their magic to speed up the journey. Speaking of journeys... it promised to be an insufferable one, because within five minutes, Kim and Ginny had got Hermione joining in with the singing now, something about mountains being high and drowning in rivers or something. Draco tuned it all out.

"Draco, why aren't you listening to our fabulous singing?" demanded Hermione.

Draco wanted to know who had spiked her drink, but decided against inquiring.

"Draco?" asked Ginny. "What's with that weird look on your face?"

"He's turned on," whispered Harry.

"He's thinking about Hermione," added Ron, trying not to look at all sour.

"Actually, he's thinking about _me_," corrected Blaise with a smirk.

Hermione sighed dramatically. "It's true. I always knew I could never compete with such a _fine_ specimen-"

"Of amoeba," finished Draco.

"-Of manhood," continued Hermione, sighing after Blaise.

"Hey!" Kim looked indignant. "That's _my_ fine specimen of manhood you're talking about!"

"Ladies, ladies, there's more than enough to go around," said Blaise, winking at them both and slipping an arm around the shoulders of each.

Draco glared at Blaise. Blaise smirked back. Kim and Hermione feigned – well, perhaps not feigned in Kim's case – loving looks and shot them at Blaise. Ron looked jealous. Harry looked amused. Ginny looked like she was about to burst out laughing, spin them off a road and off a cliff, where they would tumble down to the bottom of the bottomless crevasse in a death spiral and-

"Draco?" asked Hermione suddenly. "Seriously, what have you been smoking? You've got this odd look on your face..."

"I was imagining us plunging to our deaths," he admitted sheepishly.

Everyone was used to such antics from Draco. "Oh, if _that's_ all..." They all turned and faced the front, continuing their various conversations without him.

He folded his arms. Immature behaviour for a seventeen year old, but he put on his unhappy face and sulked for all it was worth. It worked. Hermione turned to him uncertainly, and whispered, "You're okay, aren't you?"

"I _could_ be," he said suggestively, and put his face extra specially close to hers in case she decided to take advantage of the position.

She looked like she was about to, and leant forward with her eyelids kind of fluttering closed, before they snapped open again and she announced, "I _love_ this song!"

Draco frowned. Hermione winked – an out of character action – and mouthed, "Later."

_That_, he could be content with.

--

_The black car pulled to a silent halt in front of an enormous white house, topiary serpents slithering across the lawn and blocking the view of the people singing loudly in the car. One of them, of course, wasn't too fussed upon getting the grand tour, having lived there and all for most of his life. But his girlfriend, bubbly and excited as she tumbled out of the open door, had a level of enthusiasm that made up for his lack thereof, tenfold. _

"_Hasn't changed a bit," observed Blaise, surveying the property with his arm around his tiny girlfriend. _

"_Would've thought you'd get rid of the statue, though," added Hermione. She'd been here before, and spent about an hour laughing at it when she'd caught sight of it._

"_What statue?" asked Ginny, sounding curious._

"_The one of Lucius," smirked Blaise. "The Minister for Magic got it cast after his billionth donation to the Ministry."_

"_Oh, I destroyed it all right," muttered Draco darkly. "It's currently burning away in a vat of acid, thanks. Just be warned... if it's bright green and has little bits of sculpture in it, then it's _not_ a swimming pool and you should _stay away_."_

"_Duly noted," said Hermione obediently, and opened the trunk of the car._

"_All right... now, which of you fine young men feels like carrying my bags for me?"_

**Hermione**

I grabbed my bag and slung it over my shoulder. Draco, always hovering around my elbow somewhere, immediately removed it and added it to the already toppling pile of luggage in his arms. God, that boy is terrible. Never wanted me to have to lift a finger.

"Hermione," he whined, giving me an adorable pleading look which I couldn't ignore.

"Mmm?" I asked absently. I was busy helping Kim get out of Blaise's clutches.

"Get the door?"

"With pleasure," I answered, not exactly faltering in my decision when he gestured that the keys were in his back pocket. _Why_ a fully accomplished wizarding family needs _keys_ to their house, I _still_ had no clue, but I wasn't arguing. That, is, until Draco started shrieking, "Argh! Help! She's trying to cop a feel!"

After that, I just hit him. He toppled over like a domino, all of our bags surrounding him. I laughed a little at the look on his face, until he hooked his foot around my ankle and sent me toppling down as well - conveniently, on top of him. He wrapped his arms around me, refusing to let me move. The others laughed at my misfortune, but I didn't mind. He pressed his lips against the side of my head, and again – for about the millionth time since the date, a few months ago, that we had started dating – wondered at how he had changed.

"I've got you right where I want you," he teased.

"Funny, I could say the same to you," I retorted, twisting around and clutching him around the neck. Now, we were at an impasse. Neither would let off, but I didn't feel like sitting there for years and years – I knew how stubborn he could be – so I eventually wriggled out of his hold and began to stand up. He was already there, extending a hand to help me to my feet. It was one of those astoundingly fast movements of his that constantly continued to surprise me.

Actually, Draco himself kept surprising me. He'd changed so much, from the idiot who had used to constantly call me a Mudblood. _Now_, he was possibly the most wonderful person on the planet, in his own slightly arrogant way. After the battle and his father's death, too, he'd changed even further. It had been months – we'd just started the Christmas holidays – and he was almost a different person. He was far more accepting of Harry and Ron, even going so far as to drag Blaise along for a 'night on the town' with them, as he put it. Or, in plainer terms, go get drunk and giggle constantly for about an hour. Ginny and Kim and I would always find some other way to occupy ourselves, _not_ wanting to get caught up in that.

With much pomp and circumstance, Draco inserted the gnarled old key into the keyhole, throwing his whole weight onto it to twist it, before giving the door a few good kicks. It sprang open, and standing there was a besuited butler who greeted him with a deep, "Welcome, master. Have a good term?" I had only met him briefly last time, before Draco had given him a couple of months vacation in some far off tropical place. 'To celebrate,' he had said.

"Ex_ceed_ingly," he responded, winking at me. "How 'bout you, Q-tip? Miss me?"

The butler wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I thought I told you not to _call me that_. My name is _Quincy_."

"He won't let me call him Jeeves," he informed me, a mournful look streaking across his face.

The butler closed his eyes and inhaled, as if trying to tune him out, and then beckoned us into the house. He, with his wand, brought our bags after us. Draco heaved a sigh of relief, and grasped my hand. My other one was caught by Gin, who was holding onto Harry, who was somehow linked to Kim, and therefore Blaise, and Ron hung onto the edge.

"Welcome," said Draco dramatically, "to Malfoy Manor. Please, feel free to trash anything you like. In fact, I insist upon it."

* * *

_Well, there it is. BlueSpottedDog, I hope I haven't disappointed you too much. As always, feedback is appreciated, and suggestions for the future of this story will get you a place in my loved list. Thanks for reading._


	2. Boys Will Be Boys

_Hi, people. Thanks to everyone - all FOUR of you, woo! - who have reviewed. I appreciate it muchly. Also, sorry, line break thingies aren't working. It's not just me being careless._

_Chapter 2_

_Boys Will Be Boys_

**--**

**Hermione**

We raced into the house, scattering in different directions to scope out the inside of this magnificent house. I got lost almost immediately, just as I had the first time I'd been here. Somehow, I ended up in a huge bedroom with a bed the size of a swimming pool. I'd never seen it before, although I thought I'd been quite thorough in my explorations the first time around. I sat down on it, gazing around me. Somehow, my bags were already here. This room was, apparently, mine for the few weeks we'd be staying here.

Draco wandered in, casually jamming his hands in his pockets. "What do you think?" he wanted to know.

"It's _brilliant_," I enthused, and he smiled slightly. I noticed that his smile was tight lipped, though, and not completely sincere. "What's wrong?"

He sighed. "Coming back here. It's just... hard."

I nodded, trying to look sympathetic. "Do you miss him?"

His answer was no surprise. "No."

"Your mother?" She was living in Majorca now, a perpetual vacation, I think Draco had said.

"No."

"Do you regret anything?"

"No."

"Do you want to make out?"

"N- hey, wait, yes! What sort of a question is that?"

I smiled, and walked out of the room. I'd just wanted to see what he'd say no to. I wasn't _really_ intending on letting him throw me against the bed and make out with me. Well, not that much, anyway.

So when he snuck out after me, grabbed me around the waist and pulled me backwards into the room, I wasn't at all indignant.

**--**

**Draco**

Draco emerged from Hermione's bedroom, pulling her along by the hand. Ron and Harry had walked in on them, and, after apologising profusely, backed out as fast as they could without falling over. Actually, judging from the crash that had sounded – the familiar echoes as the coat rack fell against the marble floor – Ron _had_. But no matter. Draco was more concerned with Hermione's reaction.

She sat up, straightened her shirt, patted down her substantial head of hair – which promptly curled back up again, although it was far more manageable than it had been in earlier years – and, more importantly, stopped making out with him.

"Hermione!" he complained. "They're gone, you realise."

She tiptoed over to the door, and after a second's hesitation, wrenched it open. The other five fell into the room on their faces. Hermione shot him a 'see, I told you so!' look, even though she hadn't technically told him anything. He sighed in defeat, and shot a dirty look at Blaise and Co. They smiled sheepishly back at him, before trooping out the door in a line like naughty schoolchildren.

Hermione yawned. "So... tired. 'Night, Draco!"

She collapsed onto the bed, ignoring his poor feelings, and pretended to snore. When he brushed the hair from her face, and pressed his lips to her forehead with a light sigh, her breathing deepened and she drifted off. Draco tried to decide between padding back to his own bedroom, up a staircase or ten, or just stay here with Hermione. No competition, really. He sat in a chair beside her bed, not tired at all. Or at least, that's what he thought, until he dozed off with his head supported by his hand.

When he awoke the next morning, the sun was out, and Hermione was still asleep. Her blanket had slipped, so he adjusted it before returning to his chair and continuing his surveillance of her sleeping. He got bored after a while, and kicked her gently.

"_Jesus!_" she screeched, eyes wide as she practically fell out of bed. He was amused. He'd obviously caught her by surprise.

He returned her upright, saying casually, "Nothing like a handsome face in the morning to wake you."

"You scared me," Hermione responded, clutching at her heart. "You _idiot_!" The pillow that sailed into his face informed him of her opinion of his method of waking her.

He smiled sweetly. "You mean that in the nicest way possible, right?"

"Oh, of course," she said sarcastically, trying to flatten down her hair a bit. It didn't work.

He came a little closer, eventually perching beside her on the bed. She looked like she hadn't quite forgiven him yet for her abrupt awakening, so he kissed her to help speed things along. She responded, of course. A girl would be crazy not to respond to being kissed by _Draco Malfoy_.

Finally, she broke away, for air he assumed. But when he made to recommence, she pulled back, yawning theatrically.

"I'm hungry," said Hermione airily, knowing full well that she was torturing him or something. "Shall we?"

Well, the prospect of going anywhere with Hermione – even to perform such a menial task as _fooding_ – was more uplifting than he had hoped. He obediently followed her out of the bedroom, and laughed when she came to a halt. She was lost. It was funny.

"Having any luck, 'Mione?" he asked. "Need some help?"

"No," she said immediately, obstinately.

He shrugged. "Okay." He leant back against a wall, satisfied with watching her struggles.

He wasn't dissatisfied. After trying a few doors, she came skulking back with her puppy dog face on. Laughing, he grabbed her hand and effortlessly led her through to a spotless black kitchen, where the others were sitting on bar stools and Quincy the unhappy butler was standing with, funnily enough, a pained look on his face.

"Didja get my juice?" inquired Draco, bounding over to the storage box which was bigger than the bathroom at Hogwarts.

"Yes. What sort of an overworked, underpaid slave would I be if I didn't fulfil your orders to the letter?"

Draco grinned, and punched Quincy lightly. "Don't pretend you don't love me."

Quincy let out a high giggle, and deadpanned, "Love?"

Hermione was disconcerted by the sudden transition, and the way his eyes – the irises so dark they almost blended with the pupil – stared aimlessly off at the wall, even when he was facing and addressing Draco.

"Really, Quincy. You should just admit it. We both know that you're carrying a secret homosexual flame for me deep inside your heart, and that you do my bidding because one day, you hope you'll get lucky."

"I hate you," said Quincy calmly, and sent juice boxes flying into everybody's hands. Draco held his up, a salute to the butler, and beamed at him.

Blaise raised his juice box as well, and crowed, "To Quincy! May he live a long and hate-filled life!"

"To Quincy!" responded Draco loudly, and of course that prompted Harry and Ron into joining them. By the time they'd gotten to serenading him on one knee, the girls had wandered off.

They found them sitting by the pool – the real one, this time – chatting rapidly about the boys.

"He did _not_," said Hermione slowly.

"He _did_!" Ginny insisted. "I walked right in on him!"

Draco, listening at the door, shot Harry a curious look. He'd just shrugged. "They smelt like they'd taste good."

"_What _did?"

Draco and Blaise were confused, and a tad suspicious. Ron seemed to understand.

Kim shrugged. "I used to do it all the time when I was little."

Hermione laughed. "Okay, doing it _once_ is excusable, by accident. What, you kept going back for more?"

Draco never did find out what they were talking about, because Ron elbowed Harry in the stomach and Harry fell through the door and landed on the pavement outside.

He tried, very hard, not to laugh. There was a Harry-shaped hole in the glass door, but that was okay because Quincy was there instantly, cleaning up the mess. Harry's face was covered in a myriad of shallow slices, and while Hermione and Kim looked slightly amused, Ginny was horrified.

"Are you okay?" she asked, hurrying to kneel beside him and speaking to him in a gentle, soft voice. She pushed his hair back from his face to get a good look at the damage.

"I'm fine," he said hastily, feeling it gingerly.

Quincy waved a wand, and his face was fixed a moment later. "It might be tender for a while," he observed, before wordlessly disappearing.

Harry and Ginny were still kneeling on the floor – sprawling, in Harry's case – gazing into each others' eyes like the two lovesickest puppies Draco'd ever seen. He felt like he was intruding, like this was their special moment which he oughtn't to be witnessing. Evidently, Hermione felt the same, because she tiptoed to the door, dragging Kim with her. The five of them quickly scurried away, just as Harry leant in to kiss her.

**--**

_Ginny and Harry were together on the floor gazing rather sickeningly at each other. He exhaled, propping himself up, before he kissed Ginny, who looked utterly serious._

"_Are you sure you're okay?" she asked worriedly._

"_Yes," he said, pecking her neck._

"_Really?"_

"_Yes." He moved up to her jaw._

"_Are you sure? Because I'm sure I could find something to put on it, if you-"_

"_Nope." He got the corner of her mouth, which quickly led to full on kissing. _

_Ginny giggled, and wrapped her arms around his neck. He, in a sudden movement, lifted her off the ground while climbing to his own feet, and carried her through the door. When she was seated safely on her bed, he whispered, "I love you, Gin."_

"_Yeah, I know," she said, flashing him a grin before she pulled him closer to her._

**--**

**Hermione**

Draco had, reluctantly, left me alone in my room. Blaise and Ron wanted to play Quidditch, and were enlisting Harry and him to play two-on-two. I didn't really feel like sitting out in the cold wind cheering half-heartedly whenever Draco whupped Ron's ass, so I elected to stay inside with a book. After offering to stay with me twice, trying to bribe me into coming outside, and a full on pouting attack, he trooped outside with his broomstick. Minutes later, I could hear him whooping, and Ron saying a bad swear word. It was two on one against Draco, but hardly unfair what with his talent. For once, his boasting wasn't unfounded. I wondered where Harry was.

When his knock sounded on my door, I had a fair idea.

"Hey," I said, smiling warmly and stepping back to allow him into the room.

He stood in front of the bed, pacing back and forth.

"Something wrong?" I inquired, trying not to sound too sarcastic. Really, Draco and I had been spending so much time together that I had acquired his cynicism and he my organisation. Well, kind of. I had seen him write a shopping list before, and that was far more than I'd hoped for.

"Not wrong," he said, twisting his fingers together. "Just difficult. I'm... I'm thinking of asking Gin to marry me."

"But," I said, too astonished to be congratulating him, "You're only sixteen."

"Almost seventeen," he said indignantly.

"She's only just sixteen!"

"Exactly," he mumbled, collapsing onto the bed.

I sat beside him, patting his back encouragingly. "Why do you want to marry her?"

He gave me a look that was all too reminiscent of Draco's signature, 'uh, are you mentally incapacitated?' and said, "I _love_ her."

"Okay, I'll rephrase," I said, not too happy about the look he had given me. It made me feel stupid, a feeling I wasn't accustomed to, and didn't like one bit. "Why do you want to marry her _now_?"

"Because I love her now?" he questioned, as if uncertain of the right answer. Then he shook his head. "I don't know. It's just something I... want to do. When we broke up last year, I thought I'd lost her for good. I don't want it to happen again."

I knew the feeling. It was the same one I'd felt when I'd seen the Killing Curse apparently sink into Draco's chest, and watched him collapse to the ground. Like I'd never be happy again, or breathe or anything.

I smiled. "Go for it."

"You don't think it's stupid?"

"Of course not. If _you_ don't think you're too young, then you shouldn't care about anyone else's opinion. Besides, it's not like it has to happen immediately or anything." I was trying to be as supportive as I could, and I didn't think it was a bad idea. The concept of being tied to one person, a bond that shouldn't be broken – even if the wedding didn't happen right away– was a nice one.

Harry nodded, and ran his fingers through his hair. "Yeah." He looked stronger, braver somehow. "I will."

"Do you have a ring?" I asked practically.

He felt in his pockets. "Uh, nup."

I rolled my eyes, and shooed him out of the room. "Go, and don't come back until you're not stupid anymore. Really, you boys. Ridiculous, sometimes."

Boys are stupid. We girls would really be entirely within our rights to throw rocks at them.

**--**

**Draco**

Harry Potter was, amongst other things, a party pooper. Draco was feeling particularly menacing towards him when the very man himself burst through the doors and announced, "I want to marry Ginny."

"Well, I give you my permission," said Blaise good-naturedly.

"You're welcome to her," added Draco. "Not that she isn't exceptionally-"

"You don't think it's weird?" asked Harry, looking concerned and a tad surprised.

Blaise and Draco rolled their eyes at each other. Ron was sitting on his broom, staring at the ground and turning kind of red.

"Got a ring?" Draco inquired.

"That's _exactly_ what 'Mione said," Harry muttered.

Blaise and Draco gasped simultaneously. "You told her first!" accused Blaise.

"We're supposed to be your guy friends. As in, the ones you come to _first_!"

"Bitch!"

"We're not speaking to you anymore!"

"_Hmph_!" With a puff of frustration in unison, they childishly turned their faces away from him.

"I'm sorry," began Harry, "but I needed a girl's perspective. And last time I checked..."

"Yeah, thanks," said Draco, cutting him off. "We get it. So, ring? No? Going modern? You could just tie some string around her finger. I'm sure she wouldn't mind. Besides, she'd never forget anything that way."

Blaise sighed, looking pained at Draco's – extremely funny – attempt at humour. Harry chuckled lightly, before shaking his head and saying, "No, no ring... yet. I need your help with that one."

Suddenly, Ron burst out with, "NO! I WON'T ALLOW IT! SHE'S _SIXTEEN_, FOR MERLIN'S SAKE!"

All three boys stared at him.

"Mate, if you've got a problem with me and Gin, you could have said something," Harry began, just as Blaise said, "Really Ronald, keep your voice down or I'll castrate it," and Draco complained, "Argh! My ears!"

"Allow what?" asked Ginny casually as she strolled out, wrapping a scarf around her neck.

"Allow Hermione to hire a male stripper for you girls while we go out tomorrow," replied Draco glibly. "She's really disappointed."

"What am I disappointed about?" asked Hermione, following Kim outside.

"The stripper not being allowed to come for a play date," he explained. Hermione looked confused. As Ginny turned around to grin at Hermione, Draco mimed slipping a ring onto his right ring finger. She nodded, comprehension dawning on her face, and said, "Oh, yeah, the stripper. Pity, isn't it?"

"Oh yes," said Ginny, nodding vigorously. "Hey, I know! Harry, why don't you stay behind? Surely _you're_ allowed to come for a play date?"

"I'm not stripping," he said, giving Draco a frantic look. Ginny had steel in her eyes. She obviously wanted something, and wouldn't stop until she had it.

"Seriously, stay anyway. Get drunk here with us girls. The guys can go without you, and I've got some new clothing to model for you..." She trailed off seductively, and Draco could see that Harry was praying, 'Lingerie, lingerie, lingerie!'

Harry sent a pleading look to everyone in the moment that Ginny took to wink at Hermione and Kim.

"But we haven't had a guys' night in ages!" argued Harry helplessly.

"We need to induct Harry into the alcoholic sex kitten club," said Draco.

"We've got to show him the pornographic statue at the corner of that bar," improvised Blaise, although, as Draco was aware, there _was_ a questionable statue, but it was _in_ the bar. As in, on it, for people to climb up to and try to seduce. _Very_ entertaining, when you've had seven beers.

"Jeez, defensive much?" said Ginny. "Why are you going out anyway?"

"To introduce him to Honey."

"Who's Hon-" Kim began to inquire, but then cut herself off. "Do I want to know?"

"She's our transvestite hooker friend," provided Blaise. "Nice chap, too."

"Remember when she wore those chaps? Arseless, right?"

They both shuddered.

Ginny pouted.

Harry, the epitome of weakness when it comes to a persuasive girlfriend, caved and said, "Okay, I don't need to go out with the guys. They can go without me, right?" He gave them a meaningful look, and they all nodded slowly.

"Right," said Draco sadly. "Desert us then."

"We'll be fine without you. Just _fine_," said Blaise sulkily.

"You okay, Ron?" He hadn't said a word since his little outburst.

"Fine," he snapped, and stormed into the house.

"PMS," explained Draco when all three girls gave him questioning looks.

An hour later, Harry was locked in a room with Draco and Blaise, desperately trying to convince them to buy a ring for him.

"Look, I'll give you the money and everything, but I want to do it before we leave here, and that's the only chance I've got. I trust your judgement, too. I'm sure you'll pick well."

"_Us?_" asked Blaise incredulously.

"_Ring _shopping?"

"With _your_ money?"

They exchanged a glance, and burst out laughing.

"Please?" begged Harry.

That is how, about thirty four hours later, Blaise and Draco were eating up their valuable drinking time wandering around Tiffany's.

"Ooh, what about this one?"

"That's not a ring, Draco dear," said Blaise, giving him a significant look.

Draco looked confused. Blaise decided it would be best not to explain.

"Hey, this looks kind of like Ginny," said Draco suddenly, spotting a gold band with a pear-cut diamond in the middle and two smaller ones flanking it.

Blaise snapped a picture of it with his camera phone – nifty little invention, that one – and sent it to Harry. Draco was trying to figure out how that worked exactly – little carrier pigeons intercepting the photo mid-send and flying it over at hyperspeed? – when Blaise's phone buzzed. Draco jumped, but Blaise flipped it open and read aloud, "That's a def. Buy it for me now."

"Def?" asked Draco, rolling his eyes.

"And he wrote the number '4' instead of the word," sniggered Blaise.

They paid for the ring and then treated themselves to a couple of pints, courtesy of Harry. Somewhere in between his fifth and sixth, Draco decided that he was _very_ good at seducing the statue.

Stumbling home at four in the morning, Draco started to panic. "Where's the _riiing_?" He stretched the word for a very long time, until Blaise hit him and mumbled, "Up your butt."

"Don't think so," said Draco, stumbling over the kerb. Then he burst out laughing. "There it is!" It was on his finger, and he remembered that Blaise had put it on there after-

"Oh, shit." Draco was somehow jolted out of his drunkenness when he realised what he'd just done.

"Wha?" asked Blaise, sounding sleepy.

"Is it my imagination, or did we just _marry_ each other at that drive through chapel on Gray Street?"

Blaise swore as well. They stared in horror at Draco's finger, and then started running.

"Hermione," he shrieked, bursting through the front door. She wandered into the front hallway in her pyjamas, a book in her hand.

"Hey, how was it?" she said, flashing him a smile that made him forget entirely about Blaise and what had happened.

"Great," he said, beaming back at her and taking a few steps closer.

A hard elbow sailed into his ribs. He grimaced, and remembered. _Ah, crap._

"It was awful," said Blaise.

Hermione's face instantly took on an expression of delicate concern. "Aw... why?"

Draco and Blaise exchanged a look, and then Draco said, "Perhaps you'd better sit down for this."

* * *


	3. Off the Market

_So sorry for the delay, I've been busy with exams and original stuff. I promise, I'll make up for it. Enjoy._

* * *

_Chapter 3_

_Off the Market_

**Hermione**

I had no idea what was wrong with Draco and Blaise. They were crazy, looking at me like they were horrified or something. I subtly glanced at the window and checked that there was no food in my teeth. Nope, nothing. They were just barking.

"_Apparently_," said Draco, "I am off the market. For, uh, life, I think."

"Sorry?"

He was confusing me, and if I didn't mis-see, Ginny's ring was on his finger. I rolled my eyes. Way to keep it safe. It was _pretty_, though. They'd chosen well.

"We got married," said Blaise flatly.

"You _what_?" I almost shrieked. _Married?_

"We were really drunk," said Draco, and it seemed almost like he was _pleading. _

"What, asking my permission?" I said sarcastically, too shocked to be judicious.

"Hermione, I'm sure we can get... erm, rid of it," he said, and I now knew that the tone in his voice was pleading with me to understand.

"Of course you can," I snapped, "You're two teenagers who were obviously drunk. It can't be legal. I'm just mad because it's _exactly_ the type of thing you'd do drunk!"

"I wouldn't mind if it was with _you_," he sulked.

"Gee, thanks," said Blaise, sounding slightly offended. "I've got to go tell Kim."

Harry rushed into the room just as Blaise rushed out of it. "Hey, I heard voices... have you got the ring?"

Draco bent over, pretending to retie his laces, and slipped the ring off his finger and into the box. Straightening up, he patted his pockets frantically. "Ring? Oops, I _knew_ there was something we forgot!"

I rolled my eyes.

"Very funny," said Harry hastily, snatching the ring box from Draco's pocket. I looked over his shoulder as he opened it and peeked in.

"Wow," I breathed.

"It's perfect," said Harry frankly.

With a snap, the box shut. We all jumped.

"Tomorrow," whispered Harry. "We'll all have dinner, all right?"

We nodded simultaneously, and Harry dashed away. Draco cringed, afraid to be alone with me. I rolled my eyes, and strode away from him. He could stand there, confused, for all I cared. I had a deep urge within me now, to go and have a bitch to Kim, who shared my situation. I turned around, to see Draco looking sheepish. I rolled my eyes, and stormed off to find Kim.

She was lounging on an emerald-sheeting bed, reading a wizarding magazine as she lay on her stomach.

"Hey, still up?" she asked, rolling over and sitting up.

"Yes," I said, trying to control my voice. I couldn't help it. I was _pissed off_. Our boyfriends had just gotten _married_.

"Uh oh," she said, sounding worried. She carefully put the lamp on the floor out of my reach. Kim knew me well.

"Seen Blaise?" I asked, trying – and, for the record, failing – to keep my voice casual.

"He stopped by before to say goodnight," she said, her eyes clouding over with a fog of intense infatuation. Oh, Lord.

"He didn't happen to... erm... tell you any exciting news that he's got, did he?"

Kim looked confused, and tossed her magazine aside before replying uncertainly, "He _did_ mention some exciting news, actually. He said I was probably going to be very excited, as the 'exciting' news suggests..."

"Did he _tell _you the exciting news?" I inquired.

Kim started twiddling her thumbs. That meant that she was worried. I took a breath, as Kim said, "He told me he was ready to sacrifice his virtue for me-"

I snorted. She couldn't help it. _Blaise_ and _virtue_ were _not_ words that were ever used in the same sentence, unless the sentence was 'Blaise _stole_ so-and so's virtue'. The idea of Blaise still claiming possession of his virtue was unthinkable, and, as Hermione had heard from a reliable source, utterly impossible.

"Yeah, shut up, I laughed too," said Kim defensively. "So... erm... what exciting news are _you_ talking about?" Then she gasped loudly, clapping her hand to her mouth. "Oh my God! You're _pregnant_!"

"No!" I shouted. _Gross_!

"_Keep it down!_" bellowed Ron from down the hall.

"No!" I hissed. "I am _not_."

"Liar," said Kim, giggling. "Congratulations!"

"Oh, shut _up_," I spat. "I am _not_. Draco and I haven't even done _that_ yet."

Kim looked disbelieving. I was slightly offended. "Oh, yeah right," she sniggered, rolling her eyes and falling back against her pillows. She'd obviously forgotten about the _real_ 'exciting news'.

"What?" I asked indignantly. "Am I that shallow?" I must admit, for a moment, _I_ forgot about it myself.

"No, but Draco is," said Kim practically. "I would have thought he would have seduced his way into your bed by now. It's been a year, right?"

"I don't cave that easily," I said, narrowing my eyes at Kim.

"You do to Draco," Kim pointed out.

"Not about this," I responded firmly. "I am _not_ going to let him have his way with me!"

"Sorry? Did I hear myself mentioned?" came an arrogant voice from the doorway. Draco was lounging there – in full green flannelette pyjamas, no less – combing his fingers through his hair.

"No," I said rudely. "Go away."

He held up his hands. "Okay, I'm going, I'm going. I can see where I'm not wanted. But... Hermione... we need to talk."

"About the baby?" asked Kim conspiratorially.

"No!"

"_What?_" demanded Draco, looking shocked and slightly horrified.

"Ignore her," I said firmly, and put my hands on his chest to push him out the door. He snatched my wrists, and used them to spin me around and press me against the wall, before he kissed me.

"No," I said, wriggling out of his grip. "I can't kiss a married man!"

Kim gasped. "Draco! You _slut_!"

"Hermione," said Draco, glaring at me with narrowed arms.

I blew him a kiss as I pushed him out of the room, and slammed the door behind him. I turned, leaning against the door, to observe Kim looked utterly indignant. I smiled. This was going to be... well, if not _fun_, at least _entertaining._

_--_

**Draco**

Draco retreated into Blaise's bedroom, across the hall, tail between his legs. Blaise was scanning a newspaper, looking sheepish.

"You chickened out," accused Draco, perching with a bounce on Blaise's bed.

"I couldn't do it!" pleaded Blaise. "She can't know!"

Draco winced, and held up a finger, closing his eyes. "Wait for it..."

Blaise's eyes began to bulge. "_No!_ You _didn't!_ Draco, you _bitch!_"

Draco gave an extra strong wince, as a high pitched shriek came from Kim's room. "He's _married_! As of _when_?"

Blaise stared at Draco, and Draco stared right back, until they both ran for Kim's door, fighting for prime position at the keyhole. Actually, Blaise may have been trying to _get in_, but that wasn't going to happen. Draco wouldn't let it.

"Oh, an hour, give or take a few minutes," they heard Hermione respond casually.

Kim's gasp was clearly audible. "_Who to? Let's get the bitch!_"

Hermione seemed strangely gleeful. Draco pressed his ear to the door harder, in order to hear her say dryly, "I'm not so sure you'll feel that way when you find out who it is."

Another gasp, seconds later, was slightly more outraged than the last one. Draco squinted into the keyhole and watched Kim open her little mouth and bellow, "_Zabini!_"

Draco gave Blaise an encouraging smile. "Don't worry. Nothing she'll do to you could be worse than what Hermione'll do to me. Besides, she's shorter than you," he said reasonably.

"She'll kill me," said Blaise weakly, extending a hand towards the doorknob. Draco thought he actually looked _pale_, which was a difficult feat for one of his skin tone to achieve. Rather than his usual skin of coffee with a slight dash of milk in it, he looked like milk with a dash of coffee in it.

"Go on," urged Draco, and pushed Blaise into the opening door.

He was congratulating himself on getting out of a scathing when Hermione emerged from the room, looking calm.

"Hello, love," he said slowly, trying to gauge her mood.

"Don't 'hello, love' me," she growled.

_Huh. Not too happy, then, _he remarked in his head.

"Er... Hermione?" he began uncertainly. "I _am_ sorry, you know."

She softened slightly, and turned back to face him. "Yeah, I know," she sighed. Suddenly, she was back in bitchy mode. "But that doesn't change the fact that you are an _idiot!_ How would you feel if _I_ married _Ginny?_"

Draco considered for a moment. "I'd think it's kind of hot," he admitted, and regretted his words when Hermione threw a lamp at his head.

--

_Kim was sulking, and she was doing it very well. Her arms were folded, one leg was crossed snarkily over the other, and she was glaring into her lap._

"_Dumbhead," she muttered._

"_Come now, darling," he wheedled, sitting on the bed and sliding closer to her. She let him extend an arm around her shoulders, but drew the line when he made to kiss her._

"_No," she said firmly. "I'm fairly sure that Hermione isn't letting Draco off so easily, and so you aren't getting out of it either."_

_He let his fingers slide up her arm, over her shoulder, up her neck... she pulled away with a 'hmph!'_

"_You know," said Blaise slowly, persuasively. "You don't need to follow Hermione's example. I'm sure she doesn't want you being cross with me..."_

_At that point, from the hallway, Hermione's voice could be heard yelling, "-you are an _idiot!_ How would you feel if I married Ginny?_"

_Blaise snickered. He had a fairly accurate feeling that Draco's reaction would involve a bit of salivation. But then he caught a glimpse of Kim's face, and stopped smiling._

"_Come on, Kim," he pleaded. "You know I love you... not Draco. Would it make you feel better if I... er, got it annulled?"_

"_Slightly," she mumbled grumpily._

_Blaise smiled triumphantly. "Then that's what we'll do."_

"_I said slightly," she snapped, and jumped to her feet. "Stay here," she ordered, before bounding from the room._

_--_

**Draco**

Kim burst into out of her room, looking incensed. "Hermione," she said, holding out her hand. "Come on. We're going to go away from these _nincompoops_ and have some girl time."

Of course, the instinctive reaction that shot into Draco's brain so fast he was a little concerned – aside from protesting at being called a 'nincompoop', was to say, 'Kinky' and accompany it with a suggestive raise of one eyebrow, but somehow he didn't think that would earn him many brownie points. A few, possibly, until Hermione remembered that she wasn't speaking to him.

They departed with two simultaneous puffs of indignant breath, before marching off together. Draco gazed after them, looking all noble and depressed, only half using it as an excuse to check out Hermione's arse.

Once they'd swished around the corner, though, there wasn't much else he could do than go chat to Blaise. He stepped into Kim's room, and froze. Something was not right.

"Blaise," he began hesitantly. "Does something feel..."

"Weird to you?" finished Blaise, glancing around the room in awe. "Yes, it does. But what?"

Draco took a careful step into the room. Nothing exploded. Gleefully, he took another two steps, until he was standing in the centre of the room.

"I don't know," he said, sweeping the room with his gaze. "But it's... _odd_."

With a gasp, they both let out an exclamation. Blaise said, eyes wide in awe, "We're in a girl's bedroom. Alone."

"She didn't lock the door," added Draco wonderingly.

"I don't think Hermione did either," said Blaise, his eyes sneaking first to the door, then to Kim's underwear drawer.

Exchanging one excited glance, they split up. Draco ran for Hermione's room, Blaise leapt to the underwear drawer.

"Ah!" bellowed Blaise triumphantly. "I _knew_ it!"

Draco was practically tearing up the carpet in his haste to get back into Kim's room, shrieking, "_What?_"

Blaise was brandishing a pair of lacy black underwear. "_Black!_"

Draco gasped. He knew what _that_ meant. "Good _on _you, Blaise! I'll be back!"

He leapt for Hermione's underwear drawer to find a note, pinned to a red thong.

"Stay out of my room, Malfoy," he read out aloud, and scowled.

"No luck?" asked Blaise, leaning against the door frame with his arms folded.

"Nope," Draco muttered crossly, snatching up the thong between finger and thumb and carrying it gingerly out to Blaise. "But there was this."

Blaise looked impressed. "Whoa! Score!"

Draco let his eyes roll upwards as he began to march down the corridor towards Hermione, the red stringy thing-o coming along for the ride.

"Where are you going?" asked Blaise frantically, chasing after him as soon as he realised what Draco intended to do – to go confront his girlfriend about why she didn't want him in her underwear drawer. "They're ranting! You can't walk in on a girl-rant! You'll lose your eyebrows like Seamus last term when that Brown girl was shitting herself about the birthday present he gave her!"

Draco stopped, looking curious. "That was _Finnegan?_ Huh. I always thought that was _Weasley._"

"Year before," corrected Blaise. "And did you hear about-"

Ginny walked up to them, slowly shaking her head. "Gossiping like little girls, boys. Disappointing, really. Now, which of you tried to get into the underwear drawer?" Her glance shot to the lace in Draco's hand, and she nodded knowingly. "You, I assume?"

"That's right," began Blaise, nodding assertively, before Draco elbowed him in the ribs and corrected, _"Actually, _Ginger, it was both of us."

She snorted, rolled her eyes, and walked away. Draco glared after her. Who was she to be all high and mighty? _Everyone_ knew she'd ventured under Harry's bed and found his Muggle magazines.

"What was that for?" asked Blaise indignantly, his mind obviously following the same path as Draco's.

She turned around, and gave them a knowing smile. "Amateurs."

"Sorry?"

"The two of you are amateurs," she elaborated. "_Everyone_ knows that girls don't keep anything interesting in their _underwear_ drawers. The _real_ fun stuff is in the medicine cabinet in the bathrooms."

With that wise piece of advice, Ginny sauntered back into Harry's bedroom, leaving Draco and Blaise standing gobsmacked. Without a word, they ran back to the bathroom Kim and Hermione shared, falling over each other – and, in Draco's case, kneeing Blaise where it hurts – in order to get to the cabinet. Expectant smiles of triumph on their faces, they wrenched open the door together.

"What's this?" asked Draco curiously, picking up a brightly coloured box.

Blaise was turning a funny colour. "Put that down!"

"Blaise?" Draco poked him cautiously. "What's wrong?"

Blaise slowly and awkwardly tried to explain it to Draco. "They're... these things... Muggle things, 'parently... and they, uh, they're for girls, and..."

Ten minutes later, simultaneous cries of disgust were heard all over Malfoy Manor.


	4. Nervous?

_My excuse is getting old, i know, but it still stands. I hope you enjoy._

_Chapter 4_

_Nervous?_

**Hermione**

The boys were yelling like wimps. I didn't know what about; I assumed Ginny or Harry or someone had advised them to aim for the medicine cabinet. I snorted. That would explain it, the girly screams in a pitch that hadn't yet been reached by the natural voice. Enough to crack glass, they were.

Kim was smirking beside me. She seemed to have gotten over the whole 'marriage' thing, far more quickly than I had. I was still seething, still trying to think of a suitable way to punish him. I suppose, I decided, it would be easy enough just to deny him contact for a couple of weeks. That ought to be revenge enough. I knew I couldn't do anything crueller, because those grey eyes of his... They'd win me over in seconds.

"Do you think they found the... the..." Kim erupted into a fit of giggles, which were, of course, catching. We were girls laughing at our boyfriends' expenses. What else could we do but mock shamelessly?

Clutching at my stomach, I gasped, "I... think so!"

Ron skulked into the room without knocking. We gasped at the same time. "Ron! Get out!"

"Why?" he asked sulkily. "I'm bloody bored, 'Ermione."

I sighed. "Really, Ronald. You've got to learn to entertain yourself."

"I do," he muttered.

"Oh, _gross!_"

I shot Kim a dirty look. "Immature, much?" Then I turned back to Ron, who was looking unhappy. "Well... what would you like to do? Play a board game?"

He snorted indignantly. "You're talking to me like I'm three, Hermione," he snapped. "I can't help that all of _you_ are in couples and I'm all alone when you go off and do your..."

"Coupling?" I supplied helpfully.

"Sure," he said dryly, rolling his eyes. "Look, what the hell's wrong with Draco and Blaise, anyway? They're acting all..."

"Crazy?"

"Immature?"

"Stupid?"

"Girly?"

Kim and I grinned at each other. "We know!" we chorused in response to our own suggestions.

He looked both bewildered and a little annoyed. I didn't blame him; Ron wasn't exactly used to girls. Not since Lavender. I couldn't help pursing my lips a little at the thought of that annoying, pathetic excuse for a girl, that stupid, ignorant-

"Er... Hermione?" Kim nudged me. "Care to share with the class?"

I shook my head quickly. "No, no... nothing. I was thinking about puppies. Cute 'lil puppies."

"Then why," she wanted to know, "were you clenching your fists and miming hitting something?"

I flushed, and Ron finally seemed to be cheered up. Withdrawing a chocolate bar from the never-ending supply that somehow made its way into his pocket, he departed with an exclamation of, "Thanks, 'Mione! I feel much better now!"

He left, biting into the chocolate. I glared after him. Getting entertainment from other people's misfortune is not nice.

Draco came streaking down the corridor, pounding against the walls as he went. His voice was high-pitched; he was clutching his throat. I could see him through the crack in the door. "Argh! What the hell was that?"

Blaise skidded after him. "Oh my _Merlin!_ What the hell was that?"

"I think it bit me," Draco moaned loudly. "It snapped shut on my fingers!"

Kim and I exchanged one look, and my own hypocrisy flashed across my mind briefly before we both burst out laughing.

"Hermione!" screamed Draco, bursting into the room. He was carrying a hair straightener between his finger and thumb. "What the _hell_ is this?"

I was surprised. I thought he'd know a little about hair appliances, at least, what with his obsession with his own golden locks.

I shrugged. "I dunno. What do _you_ think it is?"

He and Blaise exchanged a horrified look, and ran for it again.

Kim sighed histrionically. "_Boys._"

Our laughter carried throughout Draco's entire huge house, ringing off the windows and mirrors and scaring the hell out of Ginny, who'd been in the process of unbuttoning Harry's shirt.

-------------

"_Holy _crap!_" Ginny almost jumped a mile. "What _was_ that?"_

_The strange burst of laughter had been unexpected and slightly alien. She searched anxiously for the answer in Harry's eyes, since he generally had a solution or an answer to everything._

_He shrugged. "No idea. Sounding kind of like a dying cat, though."_

_Ginny stifled a giggle. "Or Ron in the shower."_

"_Excuse me?" Ron, who had been strolling down the corridor, minding his own business, stuck his head in through the door. "Oh, hey Gin. Thought I heard your voice." He shot Harry a little death stare, not exactly over the moon about the fact that his best friend – ex, perhaps; he hadn't decided yet – planned to propose to his baby sister, who would undoubtedly say yes. _

_Another loud burst of laughter made them all jump, and this time it was easily identified as Kim's evil cackle, spraying from her mouth like the chip crumbs did from Ron's when he heard Blaise yelling, "Hey! That was on _purpose!_ Not nice, Kim, not nice! I might have second thoughts about my virtue now!"_

**Draco**

He'd never really questioned the source of his evasive tactics, but at a time like this, faced with a slightly amused, very annoyed Hermione Granger, Draco had a brief window of opportunity in which to fling thank-you's to as many gods as he could think of, for inheriting such great genes.

He then proceeded to try to slip out the window. An evasion tactic, you see.

"Not so fast." Hermione was still the same old strict know-it-all, under all of those layers of deep, undying love for him. Or, that's what he liked to think the layers were.

"Yes, love?" he asked sweetly, sidling over to her and gingerly putting an arm around her shoulders. This time, she didn't shrug him off.

She looked kind of sulky, underneath those masses of bushy hair. It was a defeated sort of sulkiness, like she knew she couldn't win. He smirked to himself, knowing that the battle was won.

"You promise you'll get it annulled?" she asked reluctantly, leaning into his chest.

He exhaled. All was right with the world again.

"Of course."

"And you'll never marry another boy ever again?" Now, she was smiling, as if she knew what he was thinking.

"I promise," he said solemnly. At least, he'd never go drinking with a wealthy wizard's money ever again. _Especially_ not with Blaise. He still maintained that it was Blaise – the closet gay, in his esteemed opinion; because really, what self-respecting heterosexual seventeen year old smokes a _pipe? – _who had instigated the whole thing. Because he, Draco Malfoy, was certainly _not_ gay. There had been a few rumours – bloody stinkin' rumours – flying around that he'd been cruel to Potter because he as secretly hot for him... but no. _Not true._

He realised, with a little jolt, that Hermione hadn't said anything in response to his promise. Normally, he'd be a tad offended that she hadn't thought his comment worthy of a response, but he supposed that she _had_ put up with him being married to another guy.

That is, until he looked down and realised her head was in the book she'd fished from under the bed covers while he'd been musing.

Draco swelled angrily. She hadn't noticed his handsome musing face? The _scandal!_

"Sometimes," he said severely, "it's like you never changed."

"Changed?" she mumbled distractedly, a thick hunk of hair falling over her eyes. She hauled it backwards. It fought back.

Draco chuckled. Does it count as a cat fight when it's with her _hair?_

Hermione was insistent, continually raking the hair back behind her ear. It kept flopping back, almost as if to stick its tongue out and sneer, 'Haha, you suck'.

Draco tried not to be distracted by the hair battle. "Yes, changed," he continued, a tad louder than was necessary. He needed to be loud, in order to distract himself from Hermione's hair, which was, in actual fact, quite attractive when you were close to it. "You know, fell in love with a fantastically brilliant, superbly awesome blonde, and realised that books suck, boys rock?"

"'Boys rock'?" she quoted back to him, eyes still intently scanning the page from left to right, left to right, left to right...

He was officially distracted; his eyes followed her brown ones. He watched as she speedily decoded the gobbledegook written in black ink on the faded yellow page. She was interesting when she read. Her brown eyes seemed to ignite, seemed to suck some strange mixture of vibrancy and life from the air around her, and focus it into those two little points of light on her face.

_Crazy._ Draco shook his head, reminding himself that he should be worried when he starts being all poetic. It had always been one of his fatal flaws, his poetry writing. Bad enough to make cats keel over and die on the spot. Actually, a number of sonnets had been composed with that very purpose in mind. Never seemed to work when he wanted it to, though, since McGonagall was still alive and kicking.

"Ever heard my poetry, Hermione?" he asked archly. "I'll read you a limerick if you like."

_Finally,_ she closed the book and turned to face him, with such a smile on her face that he instantly forgot about his fantastic limerick.

"Draco?" she asked uncertainly. "Erm... are you okay?"

He nodded hastily, and cleared his throat.

"_There once was a cat, Mrs Norris,_

_Who wished that her name had been Morris,_

_Draco sent it a kick_

_Which hit her in the d-"_

"Draco!" interrupted Hermione, looking scandalised. "That's _horrible!_"

He did his best to look offended. "Really? I thought my iambic pentameter was quite excellent?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Do you even know what that means?"

"Of course not. Jeez, what do you think I am, a Muggle?" With his best outraged expression, he folded his arms and glared at her. "Now, would you like to hear the fruits of my creative labour or not?"

Hermione snickered – to which he responded with a fearsome glare – and then gestured for him to go on.

He took an exaggerated breath.

"_There once was a man from Nantucket-"_

"Draco!" howled Hermione, throwing a pillow at him. "_Stop!_"

He smirked at her. "Or what? Will you come over here and _make me?_"

She growled, getting ready to spring at him and whack him til he cried. Or so he deduced from the wild look in her eyes.

Violence, of course, soon transitioned into something very _non_-violent. For who can hit a Malfoy without being immediately overwhelmed by his charms?

"I suppose this means he's forgiven, then?" asked Ginny casually, strolling past the door with Harry by her side.

Hermione beamed at him. "Yes, I suppose it does. Shut the door, Gin?"

Draco smirked. He knew it. She _so_ wanted him.

------------

_Harry Potter had had occasion to be worried a million times over the last seven years. Being the nemesis of Voldemort tended to do that to one. But now, the clenching in his stomach, the way he wanted to projectile vomit across the room... he'd never felt anything like it before._

_He tossed the small box from hand to hand, pacing back and forth beside the massive green bed. _

"_These Malfoys sure do like _green_," he muttered to himself, glancing back at the footsteps his shoes had made in the plush green carpet. It made him want to be sick again._

_These emotions were foreign to him... wasn't this meant to be one of the happiest, or, depending on her answer, saddest days of his life? He didn't feel happy or sad. He felt like he was going to hurl. _

"_Oh, God. What if she says no?"_

"_Huh?" Ron stepped into the room, comprehension dawning in his eyes when he saw the box. He looked soft, somehow. Not the usual brazen, insensitive Weasley he usually was._

_Ron gestured for Harry to join him on the bed, even though it was, technically, _Harry's_ room for the rest of the holidays. Harry got the strange feeling that Ron was about to have some sort of talk with him that would involve the use of some words he'd be embarrassed to hear come out of Ron's mouth._

_Ron didn't exactly seem too comfortable either. He folded his legs, and then unfolded them and tapping his fists anxiously on his knees._

"_Look, Harry, mate," he began, his voice stuttering slightly. "You do know I... want you to be happy, right?"_

_Harry exhaled, relieved. "Yeah, I know."_

"_Ginny too," added Ron, and then admitted, fiddling with the bedspread, "It just occurred to me that perhaps I _might_ have overreacted a touch."_

"_Not really," said Harry helpfully. "Hearing that your seventeen year old friend is proposing to you sixteen year old sister can't be easy on the ears."_

_Ron narrowed his eyes, his cheery face suddenly dark. "Thanks for reminding me," he wailed._

_Harry, on the other hand, was clutching his hand, feeling sick again. "Oh, God," he mumbled. "When I put it like that..."_

_A hand clasped on his upper arm. He looked up to see earnest, nervous blue eyes staring into his green ones._

"_Chill, Harry."_

_Harry let out a deep breath._

"_We're going to get through this, aren't we?"_

"_Damn straight we are."_

_Together, in silent companionship, they walked towards the door, the weight in Harry's pocket suddenly not so light after all._

**Hermione**

I listened to Harry and Ron through the thin walls. I'd expected shouting, a bit of distasteful swearing. I'd expected Ron to come storming into my room complaining vocally about how she was only sixteen. I'd expected him to be followed a few minutes later by Harry, who would worry about Ginny's answer and whether he was a fool for doing this.

I understood, more than he might think I would. I could remember in the battle when I'd thought Draco was dead for a whole frightening five minutes... they had been possibly the worst five minutes of my life. My heart had swooped sickeningly, my stomach was plunged out the bottom of my feet, and I had had to be pulled out of the firing line by a fellow soldier.

In a world like the one we lived in, people were dying all the time. Every person who was killed was a loved one, had a husband or wife or parents or siblings or a boyfriend or a girlfriend... I knew that Harry knew very well that it was possible – indeed, _likely_ – that one of us would be next. Him, Ginny... it wasn't hard to understand that he wanted to be bonded to Ginny as strongly as he could for as long as possible before anything devastating happened...

Not that anything devastating was _definitely_ going to happen. I don't want to sound morbid and pessimistic.

Although, it was more than likely, really. Voldemort wasn't just going to go away, and I knew that our defeat of his little army at the start of the year had just annoyed him even more. Harry had told us one night in the common room, waking up with his scar throbbing.

"He's pissed off," he'd said frankly, once Ron had pushed him into his favourite armchair and I had pushed a mug of warm milk into his shaking hands. "He's got a plan."

Ginny had appeared at the top of the stairs in her dressing gown, hair sticking out like a roaring fire, and joined the discussion. I had noticed Harry looking uneasy about Ginny in the weeks prior, looking at her like he had to say goodbye soon.

"Don't even think about what you're thinking about doing," she had snapped, settling beside him in the armchair and sipping his drink. "I know you're about to do something noble and heroic, and I'm not sure what it is but I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like it. So _don't_."

Now, of course, I knew that he'd been contemplating breaking up with her to protect her, but at the time, Ron and I had stared at them like stunned fish.

I was glad Harry had followed Ginny's command, because I wasn't sure how he would have managed without her, or she without him. Actually, this proposal thing was probably quite a good idea, even if they were so young. We were moving backwards towards the Middle Ages when people married young because they'd most likely die young as well. They might as well embrace the craze.

Ron and Harry burst into the room together, not looking at all angry, just a little bit stunned. They both came and sat on either side of me, and I was reminded of all of those times when we were little, when it was just us. Before all the ridiculous nonsense with Voldemort and Draco... not that Draco was ridiculous, when he could help it.

"Nervous?" I asked knowingly.

Harry nodded. I saw Ron's mouth turn down the tiniest bit, unnoticeable to anyone who didn't know him as well as I did.

Harry fumbled for my hand in the dim light. I found Ron's arm with mine. Ron and Harry were still linked in that strange brothers-in-arms-we-fought-in-'Nam way. And so we sat, peaceable in our togetherness, preparing for the event that would most likely change our friendship for good.

* * *


	5. A Good Night

_I have officially dispensed with the multi-POV format of this story. I feel that it made the story disjointed, and really, what needed saying that Draco couldn't say in his own unique little way? _

**

* * *

**

_Chapter 5_

_A Good Night_

**Draco**

Draco stood behind Hermione, watching her poke fruitlessly at her hair with a hairbrush. He was tempted to suggest getting scissors involved, but somehow didn't think she'd take too kindly to that. Other than the giant creature sprouting from her head – the humidity of the day had made it go even crazier than usual – she looked _fantastic._ She and Kim and Ginny had spent the better part of four hours together locked in a room with inordinate quantities of makeup. The boys had slumped down in the corridor, Draco, Blaise and Harry with ears pressed up against the wall, Ron sitting opposite them with his arms folded. He'd had no particular interest in hearing his little sister gossip. Draco couldn't for the life of him figure out why; it was one of the most illuminating conversations he'd ever had the opportunity to eavesdrop on.

"You were listening at the door, weren't you?" asked Hermione casually, readjusting the strap of the dress Ginny had picked out for her.

"Of course," he said honestly. "What d'you think I am, stupid?"

He caught a glimpse of her smirk in the mirror before she whipped around to face him properly. "So?" she demanded, sounding slightly sheepish and a sizeable chunk more nervous. "What do you think?"

He let his eyes roam up and down her body, lingering on her face and her-

"Draco!" she snapped, covering herself up with the flimsy shawl she'd uprooted from somewhere or other.

"Sorry," he said, smiling like a little boy on Christmas Day.

Speaking of Christmas Day... Draco swore in his head. He'd already got a hold of Hermione's Christmas present, but couldn't quite recall where exactly he'd left it. Hopefully, nowhere near the cupboard in her bedroom, which he'd gone back to to have a bit of a poke about. She _definitely_ wouldn't let him see her, well, her womanly goods... if she found out he'd been snooping... again.

Hermione clicked her fingers in front of his face, and he snapped to attention, back to the current task of inspecting Hermione's outfit. He undertook the occupation with a certain degree of pleasure, savouring the opportunity to check out Hermione _with her full permission_.

The green dress swooped to the ground, clung to _all_ the right places... all in all, it was a nice dress. But then again, he'd much prefer her if she wasn't wearing it. Or anything at all.

"Lovely," he pronounced finally, after about seven minutes of careful scrutiny.

She patted her hair, a bit pointlessly, seeing as it wasn't going to move from its bird-nest position on her head.

"How're you going in there, 'Mione?" called Ginny through the wall.

Draco had an oddly suspicious feeling that the girl was checking to see that there was no hanky panky going on. None that would ruin the makeup she'd put on Hermione, anyway. The rest, Draco hoped she could live with.

"I hate humidity!" Hermione bellowed back, as Draco unbuttoned his top two buttons.

She clucked like a mother hen, and came over to him, brandishing a tie and putting her thingies incredibly close to Draco.

He ducked away, as much as he would have liked to stay and get a better look. "No," he warned. "If you're going to garrotte me, I'd rather it not be with my school tie."

Hermione glanced at the tie, and raised an eyebrow. Draco's eyes bulged. It wasn't his school tie! It was... _black._ And _normal. _He'd thought he'd burnt them all when he'd come home last, now that he was under no obligation to wear one again, ever.

"Found it under your bed," said Hermione, an angelic smile on her face as she took two measured steps towards him.

Draco gasped, and pointed an accusatory finger at her. "What were you doing rummaging around under my bed?"

She went red. Bright red. Fire engine Coke bottle tomato Rudolph's nose red.

Draco snickered. "You were snooping, weren't you?"

She shook her head defiantly. "I was looking for a tie."

"For you to wear? Sorry, hon, don't think it'll really work with that outfit."

She scowled, and grabbed his elbow on her way out the door. Kim was standing there in a yellow dress, just as Ginny emerged wearing a black cocktail dress, dragging Harry behind her in much the same way Draco was being dragged by Hermione.

"Hey," said Ginny, nodding at Hermione. "What'd he do this time?"

Hermione just grimaced.

"Cheer up, you two!" exclaimed Kim, struggling to keep a straight face. In actual fact, it resulted in a strangely distorted grimace/smile which Ginny raised an eyebrow at.

Draco swore loudly in his head, the worst word he knew. Kim was going to be the downfall of this whole 'hush hush' thing. He just _knew_ it.

Blaise sent him a scathing glare, as if he knew exactly what Draco was thinking about his girlfriend.

"Just because _your_ boyfriend isn't being a dick," mumbled Ginny under her breath, glaring at Harry.

Every person in the hallway, with the obvious exceptions of Ginny and Harry, did a double take. _Not tonight_, prayed Draco in his head. _Jeez, Harry, stupid chicken shit, couldn't wait to feel her up until _tomorrow,_ at least?_

"He tried to feel me up," Ginny announcing flatly, not flinching at all as Harry casually wrapped an arm around her waist. In fact, she leant closer to him, and kissed his face before turning back to them with the same baleful expression on her face.

"What the hell," stated Ron without a hint of question in his voice, succinctly voicing their collective thoughts.

Ginny just rolled her eyes at Harry and pulled him towards the front door. The others, all grouped in pairs except ickle Ronniekins, followed with a united shrug.

"So," asked Draco conversationally, resting his chin on the side of the driver's seat from behind. Harry made as if to elbow him in the nose, and Draco recoiled, _astounded._

"How _could_ you?" he demanded, giving a puppy-like whimper. "You could mar my beautiful features! You could disgrace my beauty! You could _break my bloody nose, you wanker!_"

Hermione sent an elbow into his ribs which made him gasp.

"Shut up, Draco," said Kim and Blaise in unison, then smiling and giggling together as if stating the obvious was such an astounding feat that meant they were telepathically linked.

Draco rolled his eyes to the heavens – at least, to the foamy roof of the car. He was glad that he and Hermione weren't like that. They were _normal_, and _responsible,_ and _adult _about their relationship.

At that very moment, Hermione caught his eye and gave a small smile, one side of her mouth lifting a few degrees higher than the other. He melted, and wriggled towards her. One arm automatically snapped into place around her shoulders, the other took her hand and entwined their fingers. He kissed the top of her head and murmured, "Hello, love."

...Okay. Maybe they _were_ a bit pathetic.

"So, where are we going exactly?" asked Ron, snapping them out of their joint reverie.

"I made a booking at a place," said Harry, grinning at Ginny, who smiled back.

Draco's eyes narrowed. He looked from Harry to Ginny, from Ginny back to Harry. Then he gasped.

"No _way!_"

"What?" asked Hermione frantically.

"What?" Ron demanded, eyes snapping over to him.

"What?" asked Kim, glancing over at him, vaguely interested.

"What." Blaise didn't even look up from his fingernails.

Harry's gaze was on him in the mirror, and Draco slunk back into his seat, kind of wanting to disappear, with a meek, "Nothing."

Nobody seemed to notice. Draco was a touch offended; perhaps they were all so used to him being insane that this was nothing out of the ordinary? But he supposed, with a slight sigh, that it was for the best. Imagine what Harry'd do to him if he spoiled it.

"Why are you wincing?" whispered Hermione in his ear. Her breath tickled his neck and he jumped.

"No reason," he said hastily, glancing at Harry whose glare had decreased a touch in severity since last time Draco had taken a peek.

When everybody else had gone back to their respective modes of entertainment, Hermione nudged him again. "Really, Draco? What's wrong with you? You've got that look on your face like someone kicked your puppy."

His mouth dropped open. "I don't have a puppy. You_ know_ dogs disgust me."

She shot him a contemptuous look. "You're still upset that that dog didn't jump through that hoop for you, aren't you? Really, Draco, dogs don't usually have that skill in their repertoire."

"I saw it on the Discovery Channel," he repeated stubbornly, on the verge of bringing up an old and ferocious argument that he wasn't keen to re-enter but couldn't help referring to...

"Draco," warned Blaise lightly. "Ease up, boy."

Draco shot him a cheerful scowl and turned back to Hermione. "You were saying, dear one?"

She was busily adjusting the neckline of her dress, heaving it up a couple of inches and ruining his chances of another peek when she bent down to pick up her purse, which Draco had diabolically pushed to the floor. He was a thinker, he was. Always thought ahead.

He rested a hand on hers – perilously close to the goods – and said gently, "No need, love."

She triumphantly pulled it up to a decent and entirely conservative position on her chest. In Draco's opinion, she now looked like a nun with legs. Damn it. _Screw_ Hermione and her self-consciousness! He wanted to perve, god damnit!

"So, where are we going?" asked Ron, for the second time in, what, two minutes?

Something came flying towards Ronald's head from the front seat. Once it had rebounded with a dull thud and landed in Draco's outstretched hand, he realised that it was one of those little air freshener things that he'd tried to pull apart that time. It had ended badly then, and it looked like it was following the same routine this time. Though, the consequences were for Ronald, so it wasn't really such a bad thing.

"You've already asked that," Ginny said smugly, folding her arms and grinning from her place in the front seat.

"You're a bloody fruit cake, you are," he muttered, rubbing the spot on his forehead where the air freshener had hit him. A red mark was promptly swelling into existence, and Draco watched it with a cross between fascination and satisfaction at the thought of the kid getting hurt. Sure, he was decent enough; Draco knew that much now, and he'd managed to surmount the blood barrier. But that didn't mean he was completely over his contempt for the Weasley family, though he'd recently discovered that the youngest child was a hell of a lot more hardcore than he'd thought. Keeping a bear trap in her diary box? _Genius._

Blaise, as if remembering the event, cradled his bandaged hand and sent her a nasty look. He and Draco had been trying to get the gossip for Harry, trying to figure out anything interesting he ought to know for the wedding night...

Well, they were renowned for thinking ahead, remember?

It had seemed, though, that the fiery little vixen was more devious than they'd expected.

"Poor Harry," whispered Hermione in Draco's ear, pretending to fix his collar as she leant in close. "He looks like he's about to-"

A number of lovely, descriptive verbs flew through Draco's head in that split second before Hermione assaulted him with the word of her choice which would inevitably send Draco gagging. So he quickly chose his own to substitute in.

"-Regurgitate the Tater Tots he had for lunch?" he suggested.

Her nose wrinkled in distaste, but she agreed, "Exactly," all the same.

Draco thought he heard a relieved mutter of 'oh, thank God' as the car pulled to the side of the road beside a very shiny boat on a very shiny ocean with Harry mopping his suddenly very shiny forehead. Poor bloke. Didn't know what he was getting himself into.

Draco continued to think up a myriad of other consolatory statements towards Harry, afterwards deciding that he could use a few of them if Ginny turned him down.

'So sorry, mate, but really, you're probably better off this way. At least you can still get hookers this way without being busted,' he rehearsed in his head, not really taking any notice of Hermione tugging him out of the car and leading him towards the jetty.

"Hang on a second," he protested once he realised that the pulling on his sleeve was not just for entertainment. "Where are we going?" He tried – and failed – desperately to keep the panicked tone out of his voice.

"Onto the boat," responded Kim, as if he were the stupidest person in the world.

"You know, big white thing, floating...?" Hermione prompted, patiently continuing to pull at his arm and forcing him to take a few steps towards the thing in order to remain attached to aforementioned arm.

He gulped. "Harry?"

"Mmm?"

Harry had been fussing over Ginny, helping her out of the car and whatnot. How was it, Draco wondered to himself as he took a few cautious steps towards the Boy Who Lived, that three and a half self-respecting boys had been transformed into perfect gentlemen under the influence of three simple girls?

A hand slapped him in the back of the head. He gasped. "_What?!_"

"You were thinking something cruel; I could see it in your eyes," Hermione said smugly as he wrapped his arm around her shivering frame.

He walked them towards Harry and inquired in a low voice, "We're going on a _boat?_"

"Yeah, big white thing, floating...?" Harry flashed him a grin and a wink. He'd obviously been listening to the girls making a complete and utter fool of him. Charming.

"I know what a boat is," he snapped. "I'm just not seeing why _we_ need to be _on_ one."

Harry's face contorted into that noble, pained expression that ticked Draco off so badly while at the same time playing upon his softened heartstrings. "Please, mate," he pleaded under his breath. "Don't ruin this for me. I'm freaked out enough as is, mate. Please?"

"Argh!" Draco huffed a sigh and stomped towards the jetty with Hermione in tow. She sent the back of her hand sailing into his stomach and reprimanded, "This is his special night, Draco! Play nice, and I'll let you sleep in the same bed as me tonight!"

"Oh, like you weren't already going to," he teased, but he was already won over. Who could resist an honour like that?

He had to admit, once you got past the rocking and the swaying and the strange feeling that he was about to be eaten by a shark, the boat was actually rather to his taste. It was elegantly decorated, though, the uncanny resemblance to the inside of the Titanic unsettled him rather. _Damn_ those girls and their addictive chick flick nights!

"See?" murmured Hermione as they walked into a circular ballroom spattered with tables and candelabra and a grand piano. "It isn't so bad, is it?"

He abruptly spun her outwards, holding onto her by the tips of her fingers. As he pulled her back close to him, he replied, "No, it certainly isn't."

Classical music began to pour from the boxes on the walls, and Draco, rather than releasing Hermione as had been his original plan, continued to waltz with her, prancing around the room like a right little dickhead, until the unpleasant and far-too-familiar sound of a spoon against glass sounded around the room.

"Erm... if I could have your attention?"

Rather a grand announcement, considering there were only seven of them, Draco thought, but all the same he led Hermione towards where Harry was standing in the middle of the room, glass of champagne in hand.

"_Alcohol_, Harry?" Blaise sniggered. "Who would have thought?"

"Traditional purposes only," Harry assured him hastily, and then turned to the small group who had gathered around him after their few moments of admiring the room. "Erm... Gin?"

"Please." Draco shot him a wink.

"With a twist," Blaise added.

Everybody turned to glare at them. Draco shrugged, and Ginny joined Harry at the front. Draco was _pretty_ sure he wasn't the only one who noticed their entwined fingers, and the glinting on one of hers...

"Oh my _God_," breathed Hermione beside him, her vice-like grip on his hand becoming something pretty damn close to excruciating.

"We've got an announcement," Ginny said, beaming wildly. Kim and Hermione, Draco noticed, were both clutching onto their respective beau's hand, causing him, at least, a great deal of pain in the process.

"You _didn't_." Ron was unimpressed. "Oh, Mum is going to be _so_ pissed off at you two."

Ginny sent a kick at him. "Shut up, you."

Harry inhaled. "Erm... Ginny and I are-"

"_OH MY GOD!_"

The screams were barely out in the open before two figures barrelled into Harry and Ginny at the same time. Hermione and Kim wrapped their arms around Ginny, spinning in a demented circle and screaming, "Oh my God! Oh my God!"

Harry wandered back over to the sane half of the room, looking a tad sheepish.

"Congratulations." Blaise waved his pipe in Harry's direction before sending a rolling plume of blue-grey smoke towards the ceiling with an emphatic puff.

"Yes, congratulations. Truthfully, we didn't think you'd have the guts, but..."

"I can't believe you did it without us. Mum's going to _kill_ me if I'm not able to recount every single second of it." Ron was pacing back and forth, muttering frantically to himself as he tried to unwrap a chocolate bar from his pocket.

Harry sighed in relief, knowing that Ron wasn't going to get all bent out of shape and go nutso on his ass. Draco would have smirked at the look on his face and the thoughts that were obviously going through his head, but he decided that no, he should probably play nice, today of all days.

After a few minutes, Blaise remarked to Draco, "Think they'll ever get tired?"

"Or run out of breath?" added Ron, calming down and joining them in watching the three girls bemusedly.

"Nope."

"Oh. Okay."

Eventually, they separated, venturing off into different corners of the room to attack the food platters. The girls were still attached in the middle of the room, now crowding around Ginny and demanding every last detail. Draco was surprised; how could they extend such a short explanation into the very _un_-short one that was taking place.

The boys were fed up after about half an hour of being ignored by their girlfriends.

"That's it," muttered Blaise, striding towards Kim and steering her politely away from the other girls. Draco followed suit, securing Hermione's arm and dragging her over to a blank patch of floor where they could talk and he could perhaps cop a feel.

"What do you think?"

"I think it's amazing; he was _so_ romantic... God, I'm mad that we didn't get to see, though! _So_ glad she said yes... I would have just about _died_ if she'd turned him down, though I'd understand, her being sixteen and all-"

He tuned out, and focused on the more entertaining aspect of their conversation: edging his hands slowly – so slow it was almost _painful_ – from her shoulders to a very different part of her anatomy.

"Draco!" She rejected his hands with a sharp slap. "Grow up, already! I'm trying to have a mature conversation with you, if you hadn't noticed."

"I can be mature," he protested, a little bit offended. Well, of _course_ he was a little immature sometimes; what seventeen year old boy wasn't, at times? Besides, he couldn't help that Hermione couldn't loosen up and be immature with him. Though, it was probably a good thing that she didn't – for her, at least – because he could imagine where things would quite hastily progress to if they were both being immature together.

"How many times do I have to tell you to _stop_ picturing me naked?" she snapped.

"More than that," he grinned, shooting out of his sulky mode and straight into normalcy. "Come on, Hermione. Relax. Dance a bit. This is s'posed to be a happy day, remember? Friends getting engaged and all... Come on."

On his final word, he flicked the wrist of the hand that encased hers, causing her to spin outwards. She stumbled a little at first, but relaxed with a smile on her face as he drew her near again.

'Still got the moves,' he commended himself happily, as he spun Hermione around the room. Ron was, of course, eating. Harry and Ginny were swaying boringly in the middle of the room, foreheads touching and lips moving rapidly as they talked together. Kim and Blaise were kind of dancing, standing awkwardly with their arms around each other, until Blaise said something, Kim laughed in agreement, and they headed for the nearest flat surface away from prying eyes.

On their next round, he saw that Ron had moved onto the next platter, Harry and Ginny were dancing properly now, and Kim was sitting on Blaise's lap on a chair by the door as they both picked absent-mindedly from the platter near them, deep in conversation.

Satisfied that there was nothing overly interesting going on around the room, he returned his attention to Hermione. They sailed around the room as if they were experts, until her feet started hurting and Draco's stomach started to rumble.

"Food?" she suggested, right as he confirmed, "Let's take a break."

The various members of the group rotated around the room frequently that night. Draco took a spin around the room with Kim while Hermione chatted to Ron. Turned out, it hadn't been _Kim_ who had been slowing down the dancing process with Blaise. Draco made a mental note to tease him about that later. Fancy that, a little debutante boy not being able to _dance?_ It amused him.

Once that was over, and Kim was dragged away by Ginny and Hermione to discuss wedding plans – a topic which made Harry noticeably pale – Draco headed over to calm down the grimacing groom as Blaise and Ron congregated around the beetroot dip.

"How're you feeling, boy-o? That was a nasty trick you played on our girls, you know?"

"Ginny," Harry explained, tearing his worried eyes away from the girls and focusing on Draco. "She guessed. Forced it out of me and immediately said yes."

"Well, that's good, then."

"Mmm..." His eyes drifted back to the girls. Draco caught wisps of 'blue for bridesmaids' and 'fairy lights' and shot Harry a sympathetic look before abandoning him and aiming for the eggplant.

"Full," Ron announced an hour later, flopping onto the couch beside Hermione and Draco.

"T-t-_tired_," yawned Kim, resting her head against Blaise's shoulder as they sat in the armchair.

"Happy," said Ginny with a smile, sitting down on the floor with her back against the coffee table and Harry beside her.

"Shall we go home, then?"

"Let's."

"It's been a good night, hasn't it?"


	6. Christmas Tidings

_Hello, all! I feel like I've been gone for years, but the truth is, my laptop's been taken away for the holidays and I've been chillin' on the beach for a few weeks. So, while I've been able to keep reading all your lovely feedback - thanks to my fancy new ipod (!!!) (yay birthdays!) - I haven't been able to post. BUT i'm here now. I hope you missed me =]_

_I could wait until Christmas to post this, you know, to be fitting and all, but I don't really want to. Enjoy! Merry Christmas-in-nine-days!_

_Chapter 6_

_Christmas Tidings_

Christmas morning. As a child, Draco had never really gotten into the Christmas spirit. They had Flooed to their holiday house in the Caribbean – cheating him out of his white Christmas, thanks very much, Mum and Dad – the house elf had baked, a paltry tree had been erected, and his father had read the paper without so much as a greeting. Every Christmas. Until he turned eleven.

Christmas at Hogwarts had taken him by storm. The colour, the noise, the snow, the tree. It had enchanted him. The first year, his parents had brought him home. The second, he had elected to stay, saying that he had to get some homework done and bully some Hufflepuffs. They had been satisfied with that, naturally. And then, every year onwards, he had stayed at Hogwarts for Christmas. Until this year. This year, he was home again.

He had decided to go all out this year. He had kidnapped Hermione, who had had, by comparison, sixteen years of relatively normal Christmases, and she helped him pick the tallest, brightest tree they could find. It had been fantastic, smelling of pine and gigantic. He'd had a bit of trouble getting it into the house, though, but once it was in, it was _in._ The girls had gone insane with decorations. Glitter everywhere. For the love of Merlin. Was there no such thing as a macho tree decoration?

The tinsel, too. It was strewn everywhere throughout the house. Around bedposts, stair railings, rafters... There was even a string of it cheeky wrapped like a boa around Harold, the grizzly bear that Lucius had killed and had stuffed when Draco was three. Add a Santa hat and some reindeer ears, and Harold was well and truly getting into the spirit of things.

Christmas Eve had been spent in the kitchen, all either grouped around the oven waiting for their newest creation to emerge, or up to their elbows in flour. Their efforts – well, mainly those of the girls, because the boys had mainly just thrown eggs at the wall and eaten all the raw ingredients – had produced four trays of gingerbread men, countless rum balls, jelly fun cups with a little less jelly than fun, Christmas cake and puddings, trifle, a ham, and of course, cookies for Santa. Apart from the ham, they were skipping the savoury part of the meal, and having a purely dessert Christmas dinner. It was going to be _awesome._

"Merry Christmas!" Hermione rolled over and kissed his cheek. He had managed to convince her to keep her promise the night of Harry and Ginny's engagement party, and persuaded her to keep up the tradition for the next three nights. Not that she minded. How could she? He didn't wear a shirt to bed.

"M' Christmas," he mumbled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and then sitting bolt upright. "Christmas!"

He bounded from the bed and skidded out to the fireplace. Sure enough, his stocking was brimming with gifts, and he could spot several outrageously packaged boxes under the tree that _had_ to be for him.

"Yes!" he screeched, catching a glimpse out the window of a powdery, snow-coated wonderland that was just itching to be rolled in. "Presents! Come get 'em!"

The other five occupants of the house – Hermione was already seated in an armchair, having blearily followed Draco out to the living room – stumbled out of their rooms, tying up robes or rubbing their eyes.

"Merry Christmas," was the universal greeting, exchanged at random to nobody in particular as they all caught sight of one another and collectively dropped into chairs and onto the floor.

Hermione was ready with a blissfully large pot of coffee, having the foresight to know what seven teenagers would be like early in the morning. Draco turned his back on the presents until he was fully caffeinated, after which he pounced again, diving under and throwing presents back as if they were throwing knives he was trying to decapitate his friends with.

"Blaise from your mother, 'Mione from Ron, Harry from Ginny, Ron from your mum and dad, Kim from Blaise, me from- ooh, one for me!" he recited, pausing only to unwrap his own gift. It was a humidor from his mother, inscribed with in a curly font with, 'Remember your mama'.

"Oh, I remember you all right," he muttered, hurling it towards a growing pile from hated relatives or friends of family. "Blaise, feel like a case for those Cubans? Don't worry; we'll melt over the inscription."

"Hey, thanks!"

Draco was officially disappointed. Everything he had received so far had been from people he strongly disliked. That is, until Kim, who had taken over elf duty, announced, "Draco from Blaise, Draco from Harry and Ron, Draco from 'Mione, Draco from Ginny and I, Draco from... himself? What? Did you seriously buy yourself a present and put it under the tree?"

He beamed, and opened his arms. "Send 'em here!"

Ah! That was better. _Much_ better. He was wholly and entirely satisfied now. See, that thick philosophical tome from Blaise may have _looked_ like a stimulating read, but it was secretly a hole in a book that held a pipe and a bottle of _very_ fine alcohol. Not the sort of present one could submit to the family house elf – or Hermione – for inspection, if you catch his drift. He had presented a similarly disguised present to Blaise, free of suspicion from anyone in the room.

Ron and Draco had been presented with vouchers for 'all body waxing' from Ginny and Kim, both of whom had wanted to save their respective partners from their evil plan and instead inflicted it upon the other two. Oh, it was going to be a _fun_ day when they would be forced to use them by the girls. Draco wasn't looking forward to that.

From Ron and Harry, Blaise and Draco had been presented with tickets to a 'ball game'. Draco didn't think that was very specific, until Blaise informed him that 'ball' was an actual game in itself. He had tried to explain it to Draco, but of course, that had been fruitless. Once Ron helpfully mentioned peanuts, and Harry had added the words 'foam fingers' and something about special hats, Draco had been hooked.

His favourite gift, though, had been from Hermione. It was a pile of books and movies, tied together with a Hogwarts tie. Things he'd mentioned wanting to read, things they'd discussed... it was a timeline, in items, of their time together.

"It's not much," she had admitted, blushing. "You don't have to read or watch any of them, I just remembered you saying-"

He had silenced her, naturally. She had been surprised, at first, by his lips so suddenly on hers, but soon given in to his skilful method of persuasion. The others had groaned, rather loudly, and ignored them until they resurfaced a few minutes later.

"I love it," he reassured her, catching sight of her glancing at the pile beside him. "Now, open yours."

He had found it again, uprooted it from beneath the base of his wardrobe. It was clumsily wrapped – he'd never exactly had the opportunity to wrap his own presents – but she seemed to appreciate the attempt anyway as she carefully removed the paper.

"Is this a..." she began, but then, on realising that she was correct, let out a shriek. "_Oh my God! Draco! You _didn't!_"_

"Erm..." He didn't exactly know what the correct response was supposed to be to such an exclamation. "You like it?"

She was fiddling excitedly, twisting and opening and peering at it from every possible angle. "I _love_ it! You actually found me a _gramophone?_"

Again, he didn't think that needed an answer, so he settled back into the sofa and waited for her to calm down. Blaise presented her with a few records – Draco hadn't wanted to seem excessive because he knew how it drove Hermione mad, so he'd just told Blaise what to get her.

As music began to stream from the strange speaker, she shrieked again. Now, Hermione wasn't usually a squeal-y sort of gal – though a few events over the past week had almost reversed that image – but she was apparently _very_ excited by this present. She lay on the sofa, her head on Draco's lap and her feet dangling over the end, and listened to the music.

Draco took the opportunity to concentrate on Hermione. Her eyes were closed, and a smile played over her lips. It had taken him about three months to figure out, but Hermione was a music whore. You wouldn't think so by looking at her, but it turned out that Little Miss Perfect Prefect had quite a collection underneath the floorboards in her bedroom. From then on, he had assaulted her with all of the music money could buy, along with his previous standbys of books, flowers and candy. As frequently as she protested that she was perfectly happy with him without him having to _bribe_ her, she couldn't deny the light that appeared in her eyes every time she settled down with a book that she _hadn't_ read a million times before.

She had worked a fair way through the Malfoy library last time, and completed it in increments as Quincy had owled her the rest over the following year. Now, she was stuck for reading material. He supposed that it was time for another book spree, hopping from store to store in search of books she actually _hadn't_ read. It was her version of clothes shopping, and brought her a far deal more pleasure than if she was forced to sift through racks of _clothes._ _Gosh,_ the _tedium._ Sifting through bookshelves was _far_ more interesting.

Even if he didn't understand the extent of her passion, that didn't mean that he didn't like reading. Of course he did; you didn't get to be as intelligent as he fancied he was without being fairly well read. And he enjoyed buying new books for himself, but not quite as much as he enjoyed watching Hermione standing on a ladder to reach for a new book, or the look on her face as she sat down in the actual bookstore and started to read it.

"Phew," announced Kim. "That was ex_haust_ing."

"I'll say," giggled Ginny, towing Harry back into the room from the 'bathroom'.

Public displays of affection weren't exactly uncommon in this house, and while they were groaned at and occasionally mocked, everybody did it. Except Ron, that is, who really needed to find a girlfriend already.

"Food?"

Draco's ears pricked up. "Yes, that!"

The decision was fairly unanimous. First priority: food. They congregated around the dining table and delved into the mountain of dessert that lay there.

Another unanimous decision. Dessert for main course? _Very_ good idea.

Ron let out a loud belch.

"Oh, that's just _disgusting_, Ronald."

"If Mum were here, you'd be _dead._"

Blaise responded with a pathetic little girl-burp.

"Blaise!"

Draco snickered at Blaise's attempt, and gave a more fitting retort to Ron's initial challenge.

"_Draco!_"

And then, little Kim opened her mouth and let rip with the biggest soda-fuelled, out of character burp Draco'd ever heard in his entire life.

"Whoa..." all the boys murmured reverently.

"Kim!" the other two girls reprimanded, secretly a little bit proud.

Blaise ruffled her hair – "That's my girl!" – and Ron stared at Kim with something like admiration in his eyes. Kim blushed, her eyes meeting Ron's.

Uh oh. Draco observed that little exchange. Perhaps he shouldn't have been quite so emphatic in his wishes that Ron would grow a pair and find a lady friend. He had meant, of course, that Ron should extend the search beyond the house a tad. He had never really been a gossip-monger, though he followed it closely enough if it related to him. Merlin knew that he had had enough trouble caused by gossip in the past. He didn't want to suddenly find himself smack back in the middle of a love triangle that could very easily turn nasty. Blaise had a temper, and he _really_ liked Kim. Draco had always thought that Kim really liked him back, but he had also seen the way she had looked at Ron just before.

"Hey," he whispered to Hermione, following her as she carried some empty plates to the kitchen. "Has Kim ever said anything to you about Ron?"

"Ron?" She turned around, surprised. He nudged her to keep walking. She turned around unsteadily and walked into the kitchen before she set down the plates and replied, "Once or twice... why? What did you hear?"

"Well, it was right after the burping thing... Ron was gazing at Kim all googly-eyed because he'd finally discovered a girl as bad-mannered as himself-"

"_You_ can talk," muttered Hermione.

"-and she _blushed_ all innocent-schoolgirl-y, and he gave this sort of awkward grin."

Her hand clapped to her mouth. "Oh, Kim," she murmured to herself. Then she snapped back into normal Hermione mode, strictly businesslike. "Did Blaise see?"

"I don't know. I don't think so. Why? What has she said, exactly?"

Hermione swallowed. Draco could see that she didn't like to spread stories about one of her best friends, but really, it was for Kim's own good. They were trying to prevent a nuclear explosion, here!

"Before she got with Blaise, she had a bit of a crush on Ron. I encouraged her to go for it, but she never did. I have no idea why-"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Could it have been, possibly, because she saw that Ronald was madly and plainly in love with you?"

"No, of course not," she said immediately. Always underestimating herself, she refused to admit the extent of Ron's former obsession for her. But seriously, when you've got a guy who pretends to almost commit suicide to get your attention, you know you've got a bit of a fan.

"Come on, we've got to do something," she continued hastily, as if nothing had happened. "I'll talk to Kim, tell her to get her butt in line. You talk to Ron. Tell him that she's got a boyfriend and that he's to stay clear away from her."

"Deal," agreed Draco, and they started to go their separate ways. Hermione could hear Kim laughing with Ginny in a bedroom, and Draco could hear Ron's strangled singing in tune with the gramophone in the living room. Before they left, though, Hermione darted back and quickly pressed her lips against his. He caught her, grinning. She was bright red, struggling to get away. "You know, you don't have to blush. You're _allowed_ to do that."

She slowly stopped struggling, and he pulled her closer. "In fact," he added, "I like that you're making the first move."

"Yeah?" she whispered, pointing upwards. There was a sprig of mistletoe above them.

He shrugged. "Still..."

She put her hands on his chest, looking a little hesitant, and pushed him up against the counter of the kitchen.

"Probably not sanitary, kissing this close to the food," he began with a smile, but she kissed him again, with enough gentle force to shut him up for a good few minutes. She slowly moved backwards, and he moved forwards as if to follow her to continue the festivities, but she held a hand in front of her mouth. With a triumphant smile, she waved at him, and disappeared through the door to her side.

He stood there, stunned, for a moment. Well, _this_ was a new Hermione. Funny, that it had taken almost a year to bring it out of her.

And then he remembered his mission, because Ron banged into the kitchen, looking for leftovers to scrounge up.

"_Still_ hungry?" he asked incredulously.

"'Course," Ron answered, ripping into an abandoned leg of ham with his teeth.

"Hey, Ron."

Ron paused mid-bite, his head twisting around so fast it was a surprise he didn't get whiplash.

Draco was surprised too. Serious Draco? Now _that_ was strange.

"How do you feel about Kim?"

"Kim?" Ron looked surprised by the question. "Nice girl. Quite 'tractive. Not really my type, but Blaise is a lucky girl."

Draco ignored the joke and moved on to the 'not my type'. "Not your type? Ah, that's good, then. I must be mistaken. So you _weren't_ staring at her like she was a goddess in a toga?"

"Gosh, _no_." Ron's eyes glazed over as if he were imagining Kim into a toga.

Draco should _not_ have put that idea into his head.

He walked away, not wanting to play witness as Ron let his fantasies get out of control, and also wanting to get back to Hermione for, hopefully, round two. She was relaxing on the carpet as Ginny admired Kim's new bracelet and Blaise and Harry bickered playfully about which record to put on next. Ron wandered out with a plate of trifle, and Draco noticed that both Kim and Blaise's eyes slid around to him. Kim's were wide, Blaise's were narrowed.

Oops. Maybe Blaise _had_ seen, after all.

But a game of Twister later, and all grievances were forgotten. They were simply enjoying spending Christmas Day together, and not even a petty little fight could take away from the cheery atmosphere of the day. They were warm, fed and happy, and just about every other clichéd adjective one could think of to describe them on such a day. More importantly, they were together. No annoying parents, no plaguing poltergeists or undesirable students floating around the castle, spoiling their fun. Just the seven of them, in a house, savouring the last holiday before they were released out into the world next spring.

They were determined to make it last.

_End of Part 1_

* * *


	7. In the Corridor

_I'm back, and I'm sorry. This one has been a long time coming because I've been stuck about how to keep it going, but I've decided, with the help of feedback from many of you guys, to keep it going as I originally planned. You get this later, but just so ya'll know, it's a year later. Christmastime again._

_Enjoy, and thanks for the patience and lovely reviews._

* * *

_**Part 2**_

_Chapter 7_

_In the Corridor_

Draco Malfoy sauntered down a cracked side walk, into a dilapidated lobby, up a narrow, winding flight of stairs, down a corridor, and rapped his knuckles against a black door. Twice, three times. He could hear footsteps thumping around inside the apartment, so, of course, he knocked again.

"Shut up, I'm coming, you moron!"

He shoved the offending fist in a pocket, and studied the gold number – 76 – that adorned the door. Well, to be honest, he studied himself in the reflection of the gold number, but it was basically the same difference. The warping of the image disturbed him, though, and he snapped his eyes away from the number with a scowl, and instead took to admiring himself in a compact mirror he fished out of the pocket of his expensive Italian trousers.

Yes, that was _much_ better.

"Is that you, Draco, dear?"

A tottering old lady caught his attention. He grimaced – anyone who interrupted his private Draco time deserved whatever they got – and turned around with a smile.

"Hello, Mrs Stevenson. How are you this fine evening?"

"Well, actually, now that you mention it..." Hunched over, she took a few frail steps towards him, supported by the walking frame with flames painted on it.

His fingers twitched. Draco repressed them. As much as he wanted to make the flames turn _real,_ that wouldn't be a very good idea. Hermione'd kill him.

The old bat peered through her spectacles at him and launched into an exceedingly long list of the afflictions that plagued her at the current time. Draco thought it wisest, really, to tune out and pretend that she wasn't speaking to him.

Just to be safe, he slammed his fist into the door again.

"...And my ankle is doing that same old thing; there'll be rain, you bet your buttocks there'll be rain, and Kitty slipped on her milk and so now I've got to nurse a broken paw for the poor thing, and... oh, Draco, you don't want to listen to an old woman ramble on."

_No, I don't._

"Ramble? You could never ramble, Mrs Stevenson. Your conversation is _intellectual_ and _stimulating_, and I enjoy it _ever_ so much."

"Oh, well, that's nice of you, dear. If you're sure... Well, you should probably hear about what old Mr Reynolds did over at the home. I was there for tea one night – oh, the food is _awful _there; I'd rather _die_ than be admitted to that hellhole-"

_Why don't you, then? Come on, just a little trip down those stairs. It won't hurt a bit, if you let me push..._

"Uh huh."

Absent-mindedly, Draco turned his attention to his tardy girlfriend inside. She was probably getting dressed, at this very moment. He knew perfectly well how she liked to stay awake, reading or working into the wee hours of the morning, and therefore woke late, and was, as a general rule, late whenever he picked her up in the mornings. And she thought _she_ was the punctual one. That had all changed since their blasted graduation from Hogwarts and the following nine-to-midnight-is-hardly-an-exaggeration job that Hermione had picked up.

He pulled a face. _Blast_ jobs. _Blast_ working. Why couldn't everyone have unlimited coffers like him?

His attention slowly meandered back to Hermione, and the possibility of her changing, and the image of that scenario, and whether she would let him feel her up in the car.

"Draco!" With a burst and a crack and an alakazam, Hermione stepped out of the apartment. He put on his panicked face: bulging his cheeks, opening his mouth, widening his eyes. He looked like a dead rabbit, but it always seemed to do the trick.

She, lovely intelligent do-gooder her, caught on. Onto his arm, more accurately, with her pincer-like fingernails. He was _pretty_ sure she'd drawn blood. If it got on his new dress shirt, she was going to have to bribe him. Possibly in a dirty way.

"Well, Mrs Stevenson, we'll see you later."

"On a date?" the crone asked slyly.

Draco groaned. In his head. Because he was a polite kind of person.

"As a matter of fact, I'm going to stay at Draco's home for Christmas. So I won't be back for a while."

_Hint, hint. Make it more obvious, Hermione darling._

"Oh." She seemed taken aback. Poor Mrs Stevenson. Who was she going to assault in the corridor now?

She brightened up a moment later. "Well, Merry Christmas! And... do remember to be safe, won't you, dears?"

"Thanks, Mrs Stevenson!" Hermione and Draco chorused together, sweet as little cherubic angels, and unfortunately, a tad more clothed.

Once they had dived into the stairwell to escape the stupid witch, Hermione hissed under her breath, "Did she just advise us to..."

"Be safe?" Draco asked sweetly. "Why, whatever's wrong with that, Hermione dear? She's concerned for your welfare."

Hermione flashed him that scowl, that adorable, fiery scowl that he liked to ignite so much, and pushed him out of the way so she could proceed down the steps. Her boots clacked against the tiled floor, and Draco rubbed his chest. Ouch. She wounded him. Deeply. He might have internal bleeding, for all she knew, and there she was, just strutting away from him like she was _upset_, or something.

Well, it wouldn't be difficult for him to cheer her up. It was _Christmas, _after all. Plus, all of her friends would be around, sooner or later. Blaise was scheduled to fly in from his fancy Italian university in the evening, and Ginny and Harry would be arriving the next morning. Ron and Kim would be, to everyone's surprise, arriving together, but Merlin knew when. That was a-okay with him. He'd never really been one for a schedule.

The whole gang was getting back together. It had been a year since they'd all been in the same city, let alone the same house. He'd kind of been looking forward to a quiet Christmas with his girlfriend: a lot of kissing under the mistletoe, some nice groping by the fire over eggnog... Until someone else had had the bright idea of a repeat of last year's jolly affair. He'd been a bit against the whole idea until he'd remembered that last year had actually involved kissing under the mistletoe and eggnog and groping anyway. Besides, Hermione had hit him with those irresistible pleading eyes that made him – embarrassingly enough – weak at the knees.

So now, it seemed, the entire gang would be returning to the Merry Malfoy House of Festivities for the holiday. Super.

"Draco?"

Hermione stopped and turned around. He almost ran straight into her, but had the timing to top before he wobbled over and pushed them both down seven flights of stairs. She waited until he was balanced, reached up and kissed him fiercely.

He almost fell over. Hermione hardly ever took control in their relationship. He _liked _it.

And, to demonstrate just how much he liked it, he kissed her back, even harder.

Her back slammed – as lightly as he could manage – into the wall. Her arms were chokingly tight around his neck, but he had to say, it kind of excited him. Plus, the fact that her legs somehow became entangled in his and then left the floor altogether to wrap around his waist didn't exactly hurt the situation, either.

"We'll miss our plane," she breathed against his neck as he took a few steps back the way they'd came.

"Are you a witch or not, woman?"

***

They Apparated to the Malfoy Manor, having missed their flight by a considerable amount of time. It had been a gift from Hermione's parents: two plane tickets, to a holiday destination of their choice. Draco had never been in a plane before, but he was eager to try it. Or at least, he _had_ been, until a very tempting distraction had materialised in front of him. Who would have thought that under that sweet, bookwormish exterior lay such a devilish woman?

Hermione's parents, when he had met them the year before, shortly after Christmas, had accepted him wholeheartedly. Of course, who wouldn't? He was, after all, rather amazing. They doted upon him now, and while Hermione appreciated that her parents actually liked her attractive boyfriend, somehow, she didn't seem quite so thrilled anymore when he was threatening to encroach upon her 'favourite child' territory. Could you blame them for loving him, though?

Hermione had suggested flying to his home for Christmas. She had grasped Draco's attachment to that method of travel, and it seemed that the sooner the better. Okay, Draco _kind_ of understood that, though he thought it a bit unreasonable. He'd only stared lovingly at the airport _twice_. And that love serenade to the plane in the sky? _Totally_ Firewhiskey fuelled.

They had _planned_ to fly to his house, with a few stopovers in out-of-the-way exotic places. Well, screw that, Draco decided. This was better.

The telephone – one of those fancy Muggle devices that were always scattered around Hermione's apartment – on her bedside table rang. Draco, since he was the closest and into being a gentleman and all that rot, groped around for it and then pressed it to his ear with a hoarse, "Hello?"

A familiar, bouncy voice said, "Hermione Granger, please."

"Erm... she's...otherwise occupied at the moment," he said, suppressing a laugh as he glanced at Hermione, who was scowling as she forced her feet back into her boots.

Upon hearing his statement – and the suggestion that came with it – she glared at him, and ordered, "Give me the phone, Draco!"

Ginny had been chattering on about how yes, she was probably already on the plane on the way to her boyfriend's house. She obviously had _no_ idea who she was on the phone to, and even less of an idea about what they had been doing a mere half hour ago.

But when she heard Hermione's demand, she gasped. Draco winced, imagining Ginny's rather large mouth widening, and...

"You haven't _left_ yet?!"

He held the phone a calculated distance away from his ear, and turned down the volume a few notches. One of the many, many good things about dating a Muggleborn was that he now knew how to use these gadgets rather well. After all, he _had_ spent a lot of time in her apartment. Mostly naked.

Ever since Draco had finally succeeded in bedding Hermione, sometime after Easter – all hail the King of Impossible Feats, by the way – he had found a long list of reasons to show up unexpectedly at her apartment, take her by surprise, and hopefully stun her into submitting to his fiendish will.

"I'M GOING TO _MURDER_ YOU _BOTH!_"

"Calm down, Ginny!" Hermione yelled, scrambling across the bed to snatch the phone. "We just got a little... sidetracked."

"Oh my. You two... you..." Ginny's voice drifted away from the phone to scream, "Harry, you owe me _five Galleons!"_

"How about I throw you down on the bed and-"

"I'm on the _phone_," she hissed.

Draco smirked at Hermione, who was more preoccupied about buttoning and zipping. Once she was fully dressed again, she shoved Draco out the door with her foot, and hung up on Ginny without another word.

"Best leave them to their premarital bliss," she advised softly, smiling at him as they began their second, far more successful descent of the stairs. She smiled to let him know that she was by no means upset that he had swept her off her feet – literally, and figuratively, he hoped – and delayed their travel a little while longer. She smiled to hint, just subtly, that she wouldn't mind a repeat. And most of all, she smiled a little smokily, so he knew that she was ready to challenge him right back.

But all of that could wait until they were back at the Malfoy Manor. After all, they had a whole holiday's worth of mistletoe and eggnog to look forward to.


	8. Greetings and Reencounters

_Chapter 8_

_Greetings and Reencounters_

The front door of Malfoy Manor swung upon, seemingly of its own accord. Draco went to barge straight in – even after eighteen years, he _still_ couldn't distinguish Quincy from the shadows behind the door – but Hermione threw a hand against his chest to stop him.

"Don't be impolite, Draco," she scolded, and then turned to the _butler_ with a great deal more affection than she had shown her beloved _boyfriend._ "Hello, Quincy. Enjoy the holiday?"

Draco had taken up with sending Quincy away on exotic vacations whenever Hermione was coming to stay. Reducing possible interference, see, and it usually worked. Of course, this little trip had been a little too short notice to arrange a vacation to Bali or somewhere. So this time, Quincy was there to preside over their Yuletide celebrations. He could be a downer, or he could be a ball of fun. Draco fully intended to get a few shots of something holiday-spirit-ish into him to see which it would be.

"Would you mind carrying the bags up, Quincy darling?" Draco asked in his most pompous voice.

The monotone, deliberate answer of, "Bite me, Mister Malfoy," had to be expected.

"Hermione? Sweetie baby cookie honey? Bags?"

"Go to hell in a handbasket, Draco." She stepped inside the premises without another glance at him, winding her arm through the crook of Quincy's as they strolled towards the kitchen. "Yes, actually, I _am_ a bit peckish, thanks for asking. Oh, and thanks for the postcard. Was it wonderful? I heard that about it, this time of year..."

Draco was _pretty _sure he wasn't too keen on having his butler and his girlfriend conspiring against him, but there wasn't much he could do aside from hoist Hermione's suitcase over his shoulder, only to drop it again as soon as he realised that, oh, right, he was a wizard. He _Wingardium-Leviosa_'d that heavy mother of a suitcase into his bedroom. Since he and Hermione were now officially... well, consummated, to put it crudely, he supposed it was within reason to share a bed. So, the suitcase found a home on the green satin comforter on the _massive_ bed, and he wandered off to find the others.

They were sitting at the kitchen counter. Hermione, and _Quincy_, who he'd never seen relaxing in any way, _ever._ Hermione had a mug of something in her hands, above which Quincy was making stirring motions with his wand. Their heads were too close together for Draco's liking, as they sat there, immersed in deep conversation about something intellectual that would quite probably go straight over his head if he tried to participate. Damn it. The pitfalls of having a genius for a girlfriend.

Of course, he was quite smart in his own right. He'd always competed with Hermione academically, though he never really put up much of a fight. Still, friendly – or, not so friendly, back in the day when he was immaturer – competition never hurt anybody.

Except his bruised ego and poor, pitiful pride.

All at once, Hermione let out a surprised burst of sweet laughter at something Quincy had said. Quincy looked surprised – didn't exactly have much experience being the funny one _intentionally,_ poor thing – and pleasantly taken aback at this outburst. They smiled at one another, and-

_Oh, crap. _Could his butler and Hermione be having... a _thing?_

He sat on the stool on Hermione's side, trying to suppress the vague jealous side that sprouted out of his chest like some furious – yet well groomed as always – beast. "Hello, all. What's cooking?"

"The _best_ hot chocolate in the _entire_ known universe," Hermione said, taking a gulp that made her wince.

"You know, I think it might still be a tad hot," he remarked unnecessarily, as Hermione glared at him. "What?"

Why did nobody appreciate his humour and disarming wit, anymore?

"My, my. A little stuffy in here, isn't it? Haven't you heard of air conditioning, Draco?" Blaise stepped gracefully out of the fireplace that nobody had noticed turning green, shaking a little soot off the collar of his expensive suit.

Blaise had always known how to make an entrance.

"Blaise, friend, how be you?" Draco strode over, relishing the experience to be the master of the house once again. He clasped Blaise's hand. "What's with the finery?"

"My suit?" Blaise ran his finger down the lapel. "Pure Italian sex, my friend. You should see how the ladies flock. Down the streets, in hoards."

"Oh, _really?_"

Draco was getting some rather wonderful ideas in his head. He would be placing a Floo-Head to the tailor first thing tomorrow, just as soon as he rolled out of bed, hopefully after a night of gambolling and fun with his leading lady. Hey, if it worked for that James Bond fellow...

"Blaise!" Hermione got to her feet with a crash. She jumped at Blaise, who hugged her and rubbed some soot onto her back. He winked at Draco. Draco winked back.

Hermione pinched them both.

"Idiots! You're going to have to wash that, you know!"

"Look at it this way, Hermione," Blaise tried to persuade her, "It looks like you and Draco had a little kinky time Flooing over here."

He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at Draco, and Hermione primly said, "We _Apparated,_ since we missed the plane, and _you're_ the one covered in the stuff."

"Ooh, right."

Blaise winked. Hermione rolled her eyes. Draco flew at Blaise and tackled him and his Italian-stinkin'-suited-ass to the ground.

He seemed to be recovering from his breakup with Kim just fine.

The two of them had been sickening, at first, but that one little exchange between Ron and her had been the pivotal point in their relationship. Kim had gotten secretive, Blaise had gotten angry. It had unravelled messily from there, only a month after their nauseating Christmas togetherness. Draco had been on Blaise's side, of course, and couldn't help but take an altered point of view of Kim from then on. He would still be friendly with her – for Hermione's sake, at very least – but he could never forgive anyone who hurt his best friend. Blaise, after all, was in the right here, wasn't he? _He_ couldn't help that his girlfriend had taken a liking to a suspiciously feminine ginger head. It was entirely within his rights for him to be a little peeved at the two of them.

Thing was, though, this holiday was going to be _spectacularly_ difficult unless the three love-triangle-ees could keep their emotions under control. In Blaise's case, that was going to be difficult, observing the pent up tension between Ron and Kim who, against all odds, _still_ hadn't gotten it together yet.

"Your room awaits you, sire," Draco said subserviently, trying his very best to imitate Quincy's manner.

"Wonderful, Jeeves. Escort me."

They strode all together, arm in arm, very Brokeback Mountain until Hermione called out behind them, "Oh, I suppose I'll just cart his crap along after you then, shall I?"

"Would you, doll? Thanks."

They continued on, hearing the thump that signified Hermione's petulant descent and following refusal to move, let alone carry Blaise's leather suitcases. Ignoring it, Draco guided Blaise rather unnecessarily to the bedroom that had been his every time he had visited over the last eighteen years.

Blaise bounced onto the bed. "Ah, it's good to be back in the house of Malfoy. Oh, I've missed this bed so."

"What, empty of all your Italian whores?" Draco retorted with a smile.

"Italian, Spanish... I do not discriminate, Draco."

"Yes, you do... notice that, out of the _considerable _list of women you've managed to acquire since last year, _none_ of them have been English, and _none_ of them have resembled Kim in the slightest." Draco snuck a quick sideways peek at Blaise, just to see if he reacted at all.

He didn't. Well, hardly. All he did was sniff, his great nostrils quivering with distaste before he loftily replied, "Short just isn't my type. I prefer..."

"Anyone who _doesn't_ remind you of your ex-girlfriend?"

Disgruntled, Blaise replied, "Well, can you blame me?"

"Of course not."

Hermione burst into the room without knocking. As much as Draco loved his girlfriend – though, he had, surprisingly enough, yet to tell her so – she _did_ have a knack for occasionally bursting in at inopportune times.

"Sorry," she said hastily, seeing their man-talk already well underway. Blaise's suitcases sailed in after her and arranged themselves in a neat pile in the corner of the room. Oh, bless the dear girl. She couldn't be indignant for too long. Blaise gave her a tight-lipped smile – maybe he wasn't coping quite as well as Draco had thought. Hermione gave the rest of her message. "Just thought you should know... Kim just owled me."

Draco would have been even more of an idiot if he had missed the way Blaise's ears sort of wiggled, like they were perking up at the mention of the girl.

Wow. Interesting.

"And...?" he had to ask eventually, when Hermione seemed determined to make him beg for the message.

Draco grinned at the annoyed look on Blaise's face.

"And..." Hermione let out a breath. "She'll be arriving alone, tonight."

"Oh, joy."

Astounded, Draco watched Blaise's face transform. Half seemed to be upset at her early arrival, but the other half seemed uplifted at the thought of her arriving alone and unattached.

Of course, this meant double the work for Hermione and him, but he could overlook that. Kim, Blaise and the two of them, alone in a large house. How did they expect for Hermione and him to be able to make out, alone, without leaving the other two with the possibility of running into each other? Alas, until they had gathered a few more henchman to do their dirty work, Hermione and he would have to separate. He would deal with Blaise, she would take Kim, and they would keep them _firmly_ apart.

Stupid Kim and her stupid early-bird ways. How was Draco supposed to get into his groping-kissing-eggnog plans if he had to babysit a depressed dumpee?

"Erm... okay. So... I guess I'll be going then..."

Hermione shot Draco a quick look, brows drawn together. The look brimmed with meaning, succinctly stating almost every thought that had just been rushing through his head. There was a distinct air of 'this sucks bollocks, what are we going to do?' about the look. Draco, in a word, loved that look. He felt like that look was his equal. Hermione didn't seem superior to him – which she often inadvertedly did, being a genius and all – when she was conspiring with him to earn them some alone time.

Aww. He just wanted to sweep her off her feet and carry her to a room in a remote corner of the house and...

She disappeared before he could finish his daydream, closing the door quietly behind her and leaving him and Blaise alone in a sealed room that was filling with a whole load of pent up sexual tension. Not a good idea.

Not that, you know, he was into that sort of thing. He had a _girlfriend._

Not that there's anything wrong with that, either. Just... wasn't for him.

"So, er... what are you going to do about Kim?" he asked eventually, interrupting the brooding sulk that Blaise had been sinking into.

"I _was_ going to pay you to kick her off a cliff or something, but..."

"Oh, don't be silly. You wouldn't have to pay me! We're _friends!_"

They grinned at each other, and Blaise's noble, heroic pain face disappeared. Suc-cess. Draco was officially the King of Getting-People-Out-of-Bad-Moods. He deserved a crown and a sceptre and possibly a rather large throne.

There came a shriek from the next room. "Incoming!" cried Hermione, over the sound of roaring flames.

"Phew. Bit stuffy in here, isn't it?"

Blaise buried his head in his hands.

Oh, they even think alike, thought Draco fondly. Even if he was a little peeved at her, Kim and Blaise _had_ made quite a couple. The idea was nice, anyway, until she started checking out other people and breaking his pliable little heart.

He looked as though he wanted desperately to listen to the conversation the girls were having in hushed voices in the next room. 'Course, a man of pride like Blaise didn't generally go around listening at walls.

Unless, of course, someone else did it first.

Draco cupped his ear to the wall, hoping it was still as thin as it had been when he was small and his mother had told his father about his birthday presents. Blaise almost smashed his face to pieces on the wall as he dove in his haste to get over there as well.

"What was that thump?" they heard Kim ask.

"Oh, just the boys playing their vaguely-homosexual-scruffing games," Hermione replied airily.

Draco gasped in offended horror, but Blaise pointed out, "Well... we _did_ get married, man."

He had almost successfully wiped that from his memory, and Blaise was going to pay severely for bringing it back to the front of the list. Just as soon as they'd finished eavesdropping on the girls.

"What were you saying?" Hermione asked. "About Ronald?"

"Yeah, well... gosh, it's been so long since we've talked; I can't believe you don't know about this. Quite soon after Blaise and I... after we..."

"Yes, I remember," Hermione interrupted.

"Was her voice _breaking?_" Blaise asked in a shocked whisper. "Like, with _tears?_"

Draco rolled his eyes. "Well, seeing as she _isn't_ a pubescent teenage boy, I'd say yes."

"...After _that_, Ron started avoiding me. Like, not talking or anything. But then, I guess he plucked up the courage to ask me out, because he did, and we went out for dinner, but he ran into that horrible Lavender Brown creature and they... hit it off. Again. So I was like, just sitting there at the table, and he'd stood up to give her a hug or whatever, and they were just talking _on _and _on_ so eventually I just coughed really loudly and stood up and said I had to go and of course he started fawning at my feet after that but I'd just had enough so I went home and we haven't really spoken since then."

"In a _year?_ You haven't spoken to him in a _year?_"

Draco raised his eyebrows at Blaise, who had assumed a face of solid indifference. He stood up, stretched, and walked towards the door. "I'm a bit peckish, aren't you?"

Ooh. Nice try, Blaise, but it wasn't going to work on _him._ Nothing got by _him_, master of everything. Draco knew perfectly well that all Blaise wanted to do was be in the kitchen – where everyone was sure to end up eventually – before Kim. That way, he had a home court advantage, and time to prepare. _She_ would be the one to jump and be shocked and look like an idiot when she walked in to find him calmly eating cookies.

Speaking of which...

"Quincy? Isn't it about time you whipped up some holiday cookies for us?"

"With all due respect, sir, but I'm a butler. I open doors. That is it." He scurried away – horrible man, deserting the child he'd watched grow from a tiny little baby to a...taller baby – before Draco could command him to open the door to the refrigerator that he had had installed.

"Ah well." Draco bounced onto the counter, while Blaise took a stool. "Nothing we can do about him, the pesky rabbit. I suppose we'll just have to make do."

Two china teacups made their steady way across the room, chinking and wobbling a little. A small wave of tea flowed over the side of one, which he promptly aimed towards Blaise. The clean, perfect one, he kept for himself, because he couldn't stand a soggy saucer.

"Is there any way we can conjure up some biscuits?" Blaise asked, looking downcast at his poor, lonely cup.

Draco surveyed his own, and considered the idea that, if it was now seven o'clock at night, he hadn't eaten _eleven hours._ "There should be. We're _wizards_, for crying out loud."

"Would it be wrong of us," mused Blaise, "to summon some from somebody else?"

"There's a bakery around the corner," Draco said by way of answer. "And we _do_ have a tab with them..."

He focused hard on the cookies – all moist and chocolate-y and large – and raised his wand with an '_Accio'_ on the tip of his tongue, when Hermione and Kim walked into the kitchen.

"Oh!" Kim gave a little surprised gasp, stopping in her tracks and causing Hermione to almost fall over the top of her.

"What is it- oh. Hello, you two. Draco, don't even think about it."

He knew that she was just providing a quick distraction, giving Kim a moment to get back on her feet, and deep down, he knew that it wasn't _really_ wrong of him to steal cookies from someone else, but the look on her face told a completely different story. Guiltily, he lowered his wand and morosely stared at his little cup.

"Honestly," Hermione said over her shoulder, having gently pushed past Kim and made her way over to the larder, "you would think you'd never lifted a finger in your life, you two. I'd ask how you survive, but it's hardly worth bothering seeing as you both have extraordinary amounts of money and no actual need to do anything yourself. See, some of us have to survive without unlimited means, which is why..." She dragged an armful of foodly goods to the counter, "_I'll_ have to make dinner."

She chattered on, casual as ever, scolding them both lightly as she bustled about the kitchen like it was her second home. Providing a distraction, still. Kim was slow on the uptake, though. She still stood in the doorway, pink tinging her face as she stared at Blaise. And Hermione's efforts were wasted on him as well, because he paid her no attention and only stared back at Kim. Draco seemed to be the only one listening, and he never really took heed of what she was saying when she got scold-y, anyway.

"Kim," Blaise finally said, regaining control and managing to force out a cool greeting.

"Hi, Blaise," she stuttered back.

Their eye contact didn't break once as she sidled nervously into the room to take her place by Hermione's side. She seemed well and truly flustered by his presence. Blaise, however, had composure enough to look frosty. Still, there was a hint of longing that fluttered behind his dark eyes. Draco saw it, and Hermione saw it, and then they exchanged a glance.

This was going to be harder than they thought.


	9. A Plan, a Few Arguments

_Okay, this is just a little peace offering in exchange for the crazy confusing-ness going on with Blaise, Kim and Ron. It'll get sorted, or less confusing, eventually. So, here you go. Some nice Dramione goodness for all you with cravings. _

_Chapter 9_

_A Plan, a Few Arguments_

Hermione rolled onto her back and let out a sigh.

"Was that not the most awkward meal you've ever had?" she beseeched the ceiling.

Draco laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, preparing to inch it over towards something more gropable as soon as the occasion arose. "My thoughts exactly. He glared _daggers_ at her."

"My God, and she stuttered like an imbecile."

"I've never been gladder to get away in my life, and that's coming from someone who spent sixteen years with my _parents._"

Hermione rolled over again, only to find that Draco was much closer than she realised. He smiled at the surprise on her face. Her small nose was only a hair's breadth away from his lips, and so, he took advantage of the opportunity and kissed it lightly. Her eyes fluttered closed and her lips softly parted. Though her hair was all over the place – the moisture in the cold winter air had that effect on it – and she thought she looked horrible, he was of the opinion that she'd never looked better. 'Course, he thought that every time he saw her, but the sentiment remained the same.

Here they were, lying on a bed, in the midst of one of those romantic moments girls talk about so often. It was the perfect opportunity.

_Tell her you love her,_ he thought sternly to himself. _Tell her, now._

He knew he did. Of course he did. What else could that warm bursting sensation be in his chest? He didn't see stars when they kissed, he didn't hear swooping violins. It was a more natural thing, embedded so deeply within him that she'd have to prise it out with tweezers. He felt it, constantly, and he knew. He loved her.

They had been dating for almost two years, now, and he had loved her for the majority of them. But it had been an unspoken assumption. She hadn't said it either. It was more like an obvious thing. They were still together, after all this time. Such a relationship couldn't be founded upon mere _like._

But still. He felt as though he ought to acknowledge it. Out loud. In the open. Where she could quite possibly reject him. Though he would be quite surprised and possibly rather suicidal if she did, it could happen. Maybe he was deluding himself, and people _did_ stay together for years and years when they only liked one another. Maybe that's how _everyone_ was, and he was just a freak of nature. He wouldn't blame Hermione if that's how she felt. After all, he _did_ feel like a precocious toddler most of the time. She couldn't be blamed if she felt like a constant babysitter.

_Perhaps this was maturity,_ he thought with a hint of surprise. _Realising that I've been a bit of an ass all these years and endeavouring to change?_

Wow. What an enlightenment.

He had to tell her, though. The words were bubbling inside of him, bulging like some strange jellyfish, just _aching_ to be let out.

"Hermione, I... I..."

"Mmm?"

She looked up at him. The earnestness in her brown eyes caught him by surprise, so much so that when he opened his mouth nothing came out.

"Erm... night!" he said, and hastily reached back to turn out the light.

In the sudden darkness, her lips grazed against his. "Goodnight, Draco."

There was something in her voice, just a tinge of something so sweet and un-Hermione-like, that made him think that maybe he was wrong about her not loving him as well.

He would tell her tomorrow, he decided, wrapping his arms around her. Tomorrow.

Tomorrow came, and sooner than he would have liked, Hermione burrowed out from beneath the fortress of pillows and blankets that ended up around them each night, freeing herself from his arms to make breakfast. When he prised his eyelids open and blinked back the sunlight, she was gone, and the smell of bacon was floating in from the kitchen.

He almost ran to get there. It was a toss up between which he wanted more: her company, or breakfast.

When he saw her, standing by the stove in her little pyjama shorts, the prospect of breakfast was forgotten. The prospect of early morning dirty time, however, was getting tempting-er by the second...

"Hey," Kim yawned, strolling into the kitchen. "Is that bacon?"

"You look like you didn't get a moment's sleep," Hermione observed, glancing away from the frying greasy goodness.

Draco removed his gaze from Hermione long enough to observe Kim's condition. Hermione was right; she looked like a zombie. There were purple rings under her eyes, and her entire face, even the freckles, was pale and drawn. She walked like a zombie, too. It seemed as though her joints were rusted into place.

"Morning, Tin Man," he said absent-mindedly, rubbing his eyes and stepping closer to the cookin'.

He hadn't even realised what he had said until Hermione said, understand immediately, "The walk. Good one, Draco. You're actually watching Muggle movies now?"

"All the classics," he answered, distracted from Kim. "In fact, tonight, I've got a whole list drawn up. What think you?"

"I'm in!" announced Kim before Hermione had even replied. He scowled, but she continued without realising, "God, anything to get away from _him._"

As much as he would have liked to object at her presence, he knew that being rude to a lovesick girl who was his girlfriend's friend wouldn't be a good idea.

"Him? Might you be meaning me?" Blaise stumbled into the kitchen, shirtless, rubbing his eyes. While Draco was totally not into that sort of thing, he could kind of understand the way Kim's eyes bulged and her jaw dropped. Blaise's physique used to be the awe of many Slytherin females. Draco and he had used to compete with their abs.

"Oh, um, I, er..." she mumbled. He didn't know if it was Blaise's torso that had her stuttering, or her embarrassment at his overhearing, or if it was just the general air of idiocy brought over her by his presence.

"Ooh, bacon."

Blaise nudged Hermione gently aside and took over her spatula. "Got any pancake mix?"

"Not in the same fry-" she started to object, before he poured a glob of mixture into the side of the bacon pan.

"Yummy!"

"That's disgusting," Kim observed, sniffing at the combination smell of two _awesome_ foods in the air.

"Well," Blaise said calmly, "if you don't like it, you can leave."

Ooh, Frosty the Snowman comes out to play. Hermione raised her eyebrows and Draco shot a glance at Blaise. He looked defiant, even as he turned back to the cooking and looked away from Kim.

Kim, however, was a mess. She quivered for a moment, and then backed out of the room. The sound of her footsteps thumping down the hall echoed in everybody's ears.

"Oh, good one, Blaise," Hermione said, flicking a disgusted glare at him. "I know you hate her, but really, keep it civil, at least! Look what you've done now!"

She followed Kim down the hall, and the soft click of a door closing was the last thing Draco heard for a fair few minutes, above the sizzling of the bacon.

"Well. I think that went rather well."

"Oh, shut up, you dickhead. Can't you see this is hard for me? Being around her... having to be a dick to her..."

He'd dropped the spatula by that point, and when he turned around, Draco saw the powerful strains of some strong emotion on his face.

Wowza. Since when could Slytherins feel like that?

"Do you... you actually _love_ her, don't you?"

Blaise waved the spatula – back in his hand; back to business – dismissively, "Love is a strong word. We were only together for a _year_ of my life. Hardly meant a thing. I've moved on."

"As if."

It struck Draco, as Hermione ventured out to fill a tray with breakfast food for Kim, who didn't seem up to putting in another appearance, that these two needed to have a deep heart-to-heart, alone. He set out so arrange it, as soon as he possibly could. He'd need two chairs – unless they wanted to get a little freaky and share one – and some duct tape, and a room with a hole in the wall so they could watch, and some popcorn, and-

"Draco?"

Two people called his name. Blaise, softly, from right in front of him, and Hermione, from a few steps down the hall.

Which to choose, which to choose... On one hand, Hermione was attractive and beckoning him with that persuasive, forceful air... But on the other, Blaise looked on the verge of confessing something to him.

He sighed. Better do the friend-y duty. He could placate Hermione later.

"Just a second, 'Mione!" he called, and turned back to Blaise.

But it seemed his sharing moment had passed. Blaise shook his head, mournfully, and turned back to the frying pan, which was now loaded with eggs that dripped onto the pancakes which encroached on the bacon's space and it didn't like that because bacon was a rather snooty breakfast food and-

"_Draco._"

"I'm_ coming!_" he cried, and sauntered off down the hallway to see what she wanted.

She stood there, hand on her hip and fire in her eyes.

"I mean... yes, darling dearest?"

He took a careful step backwards.

She took one forwards.

"What was he _thinking?_"

He held up his hands. "Hey, I can't _really_ be blamed for the actions of my friends. I'm sorry Kim's upset, and I'm sorry it's Blaise's fault, but really, don't you think he's justified?"

"_Justified?_"

Uh oh. He could sense the storm, brewing in her eyes. The eyes were the key. He stepped back again, ready to bolt, but tensed as soon as she admitted, "Yeah, I guess. But look at it from _her_ point of view. It's been almost a year, and he can't even be civil about it."

"Look at it from _his_ point of view," he retorted. "She treated him like crap, and she didn't apologise for it at all, and she expects him to be totally polite?"

They glared at each other for a moment, each defending their friend, before they both backed down at the same time. Draco relaxed against the wall – in direct defiance of his mother's oft-screamed rule – and Hermione let him slip his arm around her waist.

"They haven't had any closure," she said wistfully, leaning into him.

"We ought to force them to have some."

Her head whipped around so fast that he was surprised at the lack of whiplash. Her eyes caught onto his, and she smiled.

"You're one devious wizard, Draco Malfoy," she informed him.

"Yes, I know."

"You have a plan, don't you?"

"Yes, I do."

There were two simultaneous loud cracks somewhere in the direction of the lobby. Quincy's voice was heard to say, "Hello, Mr Potter. Miss Weasley. The master is in the corridor, plotting with Miss Granger."

"Hello, all!" Ginny called exuberantly, her voice wandering closer. "Feeling her up again, Draco?"

"No," he said indignantly, just as Ginny's trunk skidded through and almost pulverised him on the spot.

"Harry!" she scolded from somewhere just beyond the kitchen. "I _told_ you to be gentle with it!"

"'That's what she said'," he snickered.

Oh, no. Harry had discovered _those_ jokes. _So_ third year, but still amusing as hell. The girls would be deathly annoyed by the end of this.

He pressed himself up against the wall until the trunk had made its way past them. He realised, a moment too late, that the arm he'd flung across Hermione to push her back into the wall as well had landed conveniently around her chest. With a satisfied grin, he realised that, since they were, you know,_ together_ and all, he was totally_ allowed_ to go for the old Gropy McGropester every now and again.

"Get your hands off of me." This, coupled with the stare she was hitting him with, convinced him that no, he was _not_ allowed to go for it.

Not in the presence of others, at least.

"Ginny!" Hermione flew out from under his grasp – his inconveniently placed, poor, lonely grasp – and ran to hug Ginny. Harry followed carefully behind, taking measured steps and staying out of hitting distance. What had he done this time?

Draco strolled over to Harry, since he needed something to do. He grasped his hand and they did that whole manly shake thing, but he leant over and muttered in Harry's ear, "Bit of tension with the divorcees-ish. We're going to lock them in a cupboard and see what happens."

Harry winced. Noticeably. In fact, the wince was so huge that it was almost like a nervous tic that wiggled parts of his face.

Heh. Funny.

"There will be blood."

"Or some other sort of bodily fluid."

"Oh, my God, be a little more disgusting, mate?"

"Actually, I think I could, if you really want."

While Kim was summoned and the girls jumped around, doing that whole girly reunion thing, Blaise wandered out of his room.

"Harry, old chap, I _thought_ I heard your dulcet tones." He clapped him on the back, and muttered, "She's driving me _insane!_"

Kim had frozen up as soon as Blaise had appeared, but he was acting perfectly normally. Even so, he couldn't resist pulling a face at Draco when he turned around. It was a face that said something along the lines of 'my _God,_ someone push her off a cliff already' and it made Draco snicker.

Unfortunately for Blaise, Hermione had caught it as well.

"That's it," she whispered to him fiercely as she elbowed past him. "We need to have a chat."

As uneasy as he was about his best friend being attacked, Draco couldn't _really_ do anything except follow Hermione's muttered order to talk to Kim. Even though he didn't want to. Even though he was firmly on Blaise's side.

He sighed. He really _didn't_ have a choice, did he? Hermione was, to put it crudely, wearing the pants at the moment. Bugger.

Harry and Ginny went into their room, leaving Kim and Draco alone in the corridor. They could hear Blaise's cries of pain, probably due to the grip Hermione had taken on his ear before tugging him into the kitchen.

"So, uh..."

Kim looked uncomfortable. Draco had passed that milestone _aeons_ ago. He was getting more into the realm of torturous pain.

When she made to move into her room, he stopped her.

"Er... I was thinking we ought to talk. You know. Man to... girl."

She indignantly drew herself up to her full height of five feet, and said haughtily, "I am a month older than you are, Draco, and don't you forget it."

He rolled his eyes, and lapsed into serious-mode. It felt rather rusty, but what could he do? "Seriously, Kim. What's wrong with you? Why do you go full on spaz-attack every time he enters a room?"

She growled at him, "Because I _love_ him, you _ponce._"

Ooh. Right, then.

"Have you considered..._ telling_ him so?"

"Of course not," she snapped. "He's behaving like a _two_ year old."

_Au contraire, missy_, he wanted to say. _You're the two year old._

"I mean," she continued, waving her hand airily to illustrate her point, "he's so awful to me, snapping and glaring and such. I _know_ I was bad to him last year, but it was an accident, and I've moved on."

This certainly called for an eye roll, and he almost killed himself trying to restrain it.

"How do you know _he's_ moved on? You _were_ rather unkind."

"Oh, thanks, just because you're _his_ friend. Gosh, why does everyone judge _me_ the strongest? All I did was talk to Ron a bit more than I had before. _He_ was the one who went _psycho_ about it."

Ooh, _Psycho,_ another one to add to the movie list.

"Maybe because he walked in on you two _kissing?_" Draco suggested, getting more and more frustrated with the girl.

She went bright red, looking like she'd blown a blood vessel or something. Apparently, this had been pointed out to her before. Her face screwed up and she clenched her fist, and screamed, "There was _mistletoe!_ We were _forced!_ Oh my God! Get it through your _head!_"

"You were _forced_ to stick your tongue in his mouth and hold it for ten minutes?" Draco demanded, yelling just as loudly. He was, you know, just a bit outraged. "You were _forced_ to have a _repeat_ later that night? I was _there,_ remember!"

"Hey!" Hermione dashed in from the kitchen, closely followed by Blaise. Kim looked as though she was about to go for Draco's throat, and since Hermione was already hauling him away, it was _Blaise_ who automatically darted over and pulled her back. His arms were around her to do so, and he didn't seem to realise until she had wriggled around to face him, all traces of anger gone and for once standing normally.

"Er..."

"Yeah... uh..."

Even though they both seemed horribly uncomfortable with the situation, Blaise didn't seem to want to let go, and Kim didn't seem to want to let him.

"Now!" Draco yelled, sensing his opportunity.

He and Hermione had been together for so long that they were almost perfectly in sync. She caught on immediately, and raised her wand a moment after he raised his. They Disarmed and immobilised them both, catching them in a state of inanimation in mid air. They had both been frozen with surprise on their faces, and Kim had been in the process of whipping out her wand.

"Well, too quick for you," sneered Draco, still a little sore about their argument.

Harry wandered out, pulling Ginny by the hand. "I _told_ you you'd want to see this. Well done, Hermione. That's some nice spellwork. Where are you going to put them?"

"I'd offer my room but I'd rather they didn't use-"

How was it that Hermione had a sort of radar in her that _knew_ when he was about to say something filthy and inappropriate? She always knew, and cut him off when she could.

"Don't say it, Draco. Couldn't they go in that little laundry room out the back?"

_Why_ they had a laundry room, he didn't know, but it sure was coming in handy now. He floated his charge – Blaise, luckily for him; Kim would have been bounced and bumped like a bumper cart – gently towards the back of the house. Hermione followed behind, treating Kim just as nicely. Draco scowled. She wasn't very loyal to the boyfriend she supposedly – and he was just guessing about this – loved, was she? She could at _least_ give the girl a few nice bruises.

He made sure that Blaise was more or less positioned on a chair and slammed the door shut. That done, he carved a hole in the wall so they could watch, and disguised it rather artfully with a picture frame with the eyes cut out. Four sets of eyes took their places behind the wall, and Draco unfroze both of them at the same time.

"What the blazing hell are we doing in here?" Blaise looked around frantically. "What _is_ this?"

"It's a laundry. You know, to wash clothes."

"I know _that_," he snapped. "I mean, what is this godforsaken plot they've cooked up?" He raised his voice. "Draco? I'm going to _murder _you as soon as you let me out! Really! As in, rip off limbs and shove them up your-"

"Blaise!" Kim scolded, back to the way she had been when they were together. Always correcting, with a hint of loving kindness in her voice. A small smile pricked her face. "Like old times."

"You being a cow and scolding me every two seconds, you mean," Blaise answered bitterly.

"_No_, me caring enough to-"

Kim's voice, to the dismay of her four observers, was overpowered by a loud cry of, "Hullo? Anybody home?"

"Ron!" gasped Hermione, hurrying down the corridor and out of sight to try and head him off.

A selfless gesture, Draco thought. She would miss out on the fun.

"Was that... _Ron?_" asked Kim with wide eyes, her face screwing up as she listened to the loud protests.

"You mean _lover boy_," Blaise muttered.

They glared daggers at one another, and Ron burst into the room.

"Hi, Harry, Ginny and Draco. What's so exciting?"

Hard? This? Screw hard; reconciling Blaise and Kim looked like it would be _impossible. _

* * *


	10. Complications

_Okay, the excuses are getting old, but seriously, folks, technological problems. I'm sorry, I'm sorry! And to vanquishluver... this one was written before your comment. Expect detail soon, but this is another crappy bones-but-no-flesh one. _

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* * *

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Chapter 10

Complications

"No!" cried four people with identical tones of horror and worry in their voices as Ron Weasley reached for the handle of the locked door.

Draco was a patient man. He was, on his good days, tolerant towards others. Occasionally.

But when people tried to screw up his magnificent and carefully laid plans... it made for one angry Draco.

So he did the only thing he could do, really, as Ron rattled at the door knob and started to cast an _Alohomora_. He flew himself at him and tackled him to the ground.

"Ouch!" Ron cried, as his head smacked against the marble floor.

"Sorry," Draco said unapologetically. "But you really ought to go to your room, now."

"_Why?_" Ron demanded. "And where's Kim? I wanted to talk to her."

Hermione was tapping her foot, arms folded. "Draco," she warned carefully, "I think you should stop sitting on him now."

"I agree!" called Ron.

Draco climbed off him, not without a hint of regret._ Now,_ they'd have to explain things to Ron, and somehow convince him that it most certainly would _not_ be a good idea to burst on in there like he seemed to want to.

He helped him to his feet, somewhat reluctantly. Ron scowled, and brushed imaginary dust off his back. Oh, like that would have made a difference to his image anyway.

"Ron... come for a walk with me. I need to talk to you about something." Hermione beckoned him with her index finger, walking down the hallway.

Vestiges of Ron's former passion for Hermione still seemed to remain, Draco realised with a horrified start, as he followed her willingly. That look on his face was unmistakeable.

Not only had he broken up Draco's best friend and his girlfriend, but he also still liked _his_ girlfriend, and by the sound of it Kim as well.

Would it really be so bad for him to get a smack to the head or two?

"What the hell is she doing?" Ginny hissed. "I wanted to see this!"

He rolled his eyes. She ate up the drama like it was a treacle tart. Never mind that her brother was crazy, two of her friends were locked together in a room, and Draco was getting _exceedingly_ annoyed.

He pressed his eye up against one of the holes in the wall, hearing raised voices. Blaise and Kim were yelling at one another, mouths wide open and faces screwed up.

"Right in front of me face, flirting away!"

"I wasn't _flirting!_ You're just paranoid!"

"Everybody saw it, Kim! _Everybody!_"

"You mean, _you_ 'saw' it, and managed to convince yourself that it was actually _real_ and _obvious?_"

"No, I _don't_ mean that!"

"Oh, then pray, enlighten me! What other _logical explanation_ can you come up with?"

"That you were a bitchy whore who tried to cheat on me!"

"Harsh words, coming from a guy who checks out every woman on the _planet_ while my back is turned!"

"Past tense, honey, ever since you dumped me for that _idiot!_"

There was a pause, a long, drawn out pause. Seeing as nothing interesting was happening in the visual department, Draco sat down with his back against the wall and listened to the furious, heavy breathing coming from both in the room.

"I _am_ sorry, you know," Kim said finally.

"Okay."

Huh. Well, that was as good a reconciliation as they were going to get. Huzzah!

He unlocked the door. Both of them ran out as fast as they could. He passed them back their wands with a delicate smile. "Merry Christmas!"

He skipped off to find Hermione.

She was trying to console Ron, who sat on the front steps with his head in his hands. Draco paused before either of them saw him, and took a few silent steps backwards until he was hidden behind a pillar.

What on _earth_ was wrong with him now? He couldn't _possibly_ be moping about his failed relationship with Kim, could he? A _year_ after it plummeted into the ground?

Or was it his failure with _Hermione_ that he was complaining about now? It seemed to Draco that Ron spent rather a lot of his time moaning about the girls he had lost. Don't get him wrong, Ron was a decent enough guy, once you got past the idiocy and, to be frank, complete and utter lack of tact when it came to women. However, this, combined with the drama between Blaise and Kim, had Draco rather frustrated with the majority of the human race.

"Look, just... try to move on, okay? She's not worth it."

_That_ certainly caught his attention, Hermione putting down her friend. Kim, not worth it? Well... she shouldn't be with Ron, but regardless... It seemed a little harsh of Hermione to point out the fact so brusquely.

"But... but... she's the first girl who's agreed to go out with me for _months!_"

That made induced a snicker from Draco, which he tried desperately to cover up and disguise as a cough. They heard it, though, and jumped apart like shrapnel.

"Hello, you two. Hermione, a word?"

Through all of this catastrophic love failure going in between the other three, he had to remind himself that, as merely an observer, _he_ had a steady girlfriend who he was really quite fond of. Even if he couldn't manage to tell her so, for some ungodly reason.

He waited until Hermione had stepped into the foyer with him before he pulled her to him and lowered his mouth to hers. She looked surprised, and demonstrated her state of being by jumping and pulling away from him, though she allowed his hands to remain around her waist.

"Draco, what-"

"You _do_ realise that, for once, the drama is with _other_ people? _We_, the unmatched ones, have escaped unscathed."

This was as close as he could get to telling her how happy he was with their current state. Somehow, something was stopping him from voicing the words he _actually_ wanted to say, but this seemed fitting enough for the time being.

Hermione seemed to think so as well. Her eyes fluttered for a moment, and then she leant forward to lightly kiss him. He didn't respond the way he wanted to, because it just wasn't the moment for that.

A gilded picture frame dug into his back, the sole one left in the house that wasn't of him or Hermione. Yes, he had ordered paintings of her, when her back was turned. He did, after all, hope that one day, this would be her house as well.

He turned around to survey it. A family portrait. Lucius, his mother, and him. He took it off the wall and shook it around a bit.

"Hey!" his portrait self complained. "Put me down, you asshole. _They're_ the ones you want."

"Good point," he said, and flicked his father in the head with his fingernail. "How're you going, Dad? Life treating you well?"

"Oh, shut up, you ungrateful disappointment." Father scowled. Draco smiled.

"What are you-" Hermione looked curious, until he commanded his portrait to stay still and ripped into the canvas. He had tried to destroy this portrait many a time, but found it enchanted by his stupid father. It had struck him only a few moments ago that his father had probably enforced it against enchantments, but he would never have thought that anybody would try to remove it with their _bare hands._

Sometimes, Draco was such a genius.

He ripped out a careful patch of painted canvas, which his portrait stood in, looking rather anxious.

"You're not going to hurt me, are you?" he said worriedly.

He ignored his portrait, and carefully handed Hermione the scrap of painting. Turning back to his mother and father's picture, he said with a smirk, "Now, how do you suppose I get rid of you two?"

His mother clasped her hands together, trying to convey a motherly air but failing miserably. The emotion stopped at her neck, didn't reach her face. "Draco, you wouldn't hurt your mama, would you?"

"Actually, I wouldn't. But I'd hurt her painting."

He turned to Hermione, slightly befuddled. "How do you start fire in the Muggle way?"

"Like this." She Summoned a small rectangular box, and rubbed a tiny stick against the side of it. It immediately caught on fire, and she passed it to him. With a smile, he held it against the portrait before his parents' images had a chance to run for it.

"Phew," his own portrait, sitting smugly in Hermione's hand, commented. "They were getting _frustrating. _There's really nothing to like about them in portrait form. They've no money."

There was a glob of gum in a wrapper in his pocket. He had been saving it for later, but he decided to sacrifice it to a good cause now. Using the gum, he stuck the little jagged piece of canvas onto the wall, where his painted self folded his arms and smiled.

"Satisfactory," he announced, pointing his nose upwards so they could see his nostrils.

This Draco was a little haughtier than he might have liked, the portrait having been painted in his pre-Hermione days. But still, it was a fitting adornment to the wall. Good to chat with when nobody else was around.

Of course, its placement left something to be desired, what with their previous activities.

There was a quick solution for that, though. He kicked the ashy remains of the frame out of their way, covered the portraits eyes with his hand, and used his free hand to hitch Hermione's leg around his waist. She was full off the ground now, her eyes level with his. They twinkled with amusement as he winked and asked suggestively, "Now... where were we?"

She kissed him for a moment, but then pulled back, frowning like she was about to do something difficult.

He pressed his lips to her forehead. "What is it, love?"

There! He'd said it! Well, he'd said the _word_, referring to her, and so that was something, at least.

"Draco, I-" she began to say, before Ginny burst into the room.

One of the pitfalls of a house full of teenagers, plus one butler. You could simply never find the time to make out with your girlfriend or have that girlfriend prospectively tell you she's that fond of you, as well, without being interrupted.

"Ooh, sorry," she said with a giggle. "But Quincy was looking for you, Hermione, and Blaise has a bone to pick with you, Draco."

Hermione looked sympathetic but not at all inclined to stay behind and rescue him from Blaise's wrath. Yes, admittedly, it _had_ been his idea, but that wasn't the point. He needed_ backup_, damn it, and he didn't care who knew it!

"Draco?" called Blaise persuasively from somewhere near. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

"No thanks," he called gamely back, aiming towards the door. "Later, Hermione. _Bye!_" He hurled himself at the front door and almost trampling Ron in his haste to get very far away before Blaise found him.

'Course, it was insane that he should be running away from his own house, but since Blaise was three inches taller than him and could probably pound him into the ground, he felt that he was justified in doing so.

It would have been a much better idea, he decided ruefully as Blaise sent him to the ground with a flying tackle, to leave him locked in that room for a few more hours.

"_Why_ did you _lock_ me in that _room_ with that _beast_?" Blaise demanded, squishing Draco's face into the snow with each word.

"Ouch, ouch, _ouch_, to make you reconcile your differences and, ouch, _stop_, make it a bearable Christmas for the- holy fraking Merlin, _stop that!_"

Blaise paused, blissfully, and Draco had the opportunity to spit out the twig that had been digging into the back of his throat. "Fraking?" he asked, one eyebrow perfectly raised.

"Star Trek," Draco said defensively. "With all this time on my hands, I'm trying to immerse myself deeper into Hermione's native culture so as to better fit into her world."

"Dude, you've already met her parents, you're good to go. Besides, Hermione isn't a Trekkie."

Blaise rolled off of him with a sigh, and they lay side by side in the snow.

"What _are_ we going to do?" Draco implored the powers that be.

"_We?_ What have _you_ got to worry about?" Blaise demanded, as if being stuck in a house with your ex-girlfriend was the worst problem anyone could have.

Draco exhaled a cloud of frosty breath. "Nothing."

He turned his head. Blaise was smirking.

Now, why would a _good friend_ do a thing like that, when faced with the possibility of his friend having a _problem?_

Because he's _not_ a good friend, was the conclusion that Draco favoured.

"You're such an ass, Blaise."

"Seriously, what is it? Oh, my. Don't tell me you haven't managed to... you know..."

Behind the times, much? Draco gave an airy yawn. "It isn't that. It's just... I haven't quite been able to..."

Blaise patted his shoulder sympathetically. "Don't worry, Draco dear. Impotency is a common problem among males of today."

"Thanks for- hang on, _what?_"

He sat up like he'd been short. "I _haven't quite been able to _tell Hermione that I love her, you _moron!_ Goodness! What is _wrong_ with you?"

Draco grimaced, and started heading back towards the house.

"Just do it, Draco. Spit it out," Blaise advised, overtaking him and jogging over to the house. There was a loud crack, and two beautiful girls appeared, tall, exotic and buxom.

"Oh!" Blaise called over his shoulder. "Hope you don't mind... I've brought some guests!"

Draco sighed, and went over to greet – perve on – Blaise's newest friends. Perhaps Kim's heartfelt apology hadn't had quite the effect she'd intended.


	11. Surprise!

_Chapter 11_

_Surprise!_

The first thing Draco felt when he helped Blaise escort his new friends back into the house was a five foot five, curly haired witch slamming into him and using her fist on his collar to hold him fiercely against a wall.

_What had he done now?_

It wasn't that he did bad things often. In fact, he _hardly ever_ did anything that might be considered morally reprehensible. And therefore, he really had no right to be frustrated with Hermione for the frequency of similar attacks.

It was more that he wasn't quite sure what he'd done, this time. Usually, he knew right away, since someone who commits as _few_ wrongful deeds as he, didn't really need to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out what they were in trouble for.

But scanning over the last few days, he really couldn't think of anything overly bad he'd done.

Hermione would have to fill in the blanks, which she did. Loudly.

"What are _they_ doing here?" she hissed, as Blaise and the bimbos respectfully moved out of earshot. "And what were _you_ doing with your hand around her _waist?_"

Now, this wasn't as bad as he'd expected. In fact, it was almost... funny.

Amusedly, he asked, "Jealous, Hermione darling?" while stepping easily out of the grip she held him in.

"J-_jealous_?" she spat, looking furious. She raised her hand to slash a stray tress of hair out of her face. Her hand shook slightly, whether out of anger or... nope, it was definitely angry shaking. He realised it was so, when she snapped, "No, just looking for an explanation!"

He smiled, leant forward, and brushed his hand along her cheek. "Hermione... calm down. You know I-" Here, he choked. Damn it, Draco! It was the _perfect_ opportunity to just slip it in, nice and casual, and he couldn't even say it _then?_ Damn it, damn it, _damn it!_

"I...?" Hermione prompted with a frown, as if she knew what he wanted to say and understood why he couldn't say it, yet wished that he would muster up the cahones and do it already.

"-I wouldn't want anyone but you," he finished, disgusted with himself. "Now, we're good, right?"

She sighed. He didn't know whether it was because he _couldn't say it_, or because he was slowly pulling her towards him and she knew that she was about to go weak at the knees or something marvellous like that.

"Wait a second..." Her eyes snapped open. "No, we _aren't_ good, because they're _still here_ and I don't know why!"

He escorted her over to the lounge, explaining gently, "Now, Hermione, remember that these are Blaise's guests. Blaise, my good friend, who could murder me without hardly lifting a finger."

She crossed her arms. "And the fact that they're six foot and _supermodels_ has escaped your notice?"

"Of course it has. Why would I look at anything but you?"

She slapped his arm. Hard. "Liar."

Well. That hadn't gone the way he had expected. But, regardless of whatever searing pain he was feeling at the moment, it was worth it to see Hermione jealous. _Jealous._ Wonderful. He savoured the word, until Hermione hit him again.

"Stop smirking, and why are they here?"

He shrugged, though he knew full well the reason for their presence. Explaining it to Hermione, a girl, though, would be instant dynamite. There was no way of explaining the male reasoning without invoking her pure and utter fury.

Still, she put her hands on her hips and did that funny enflaming beautiful anger thing that she did so well, and he chanced a light explanation.

"A little old fashioned revenge, the way we attractive boys do it best."

His reasoning was that the humour would distract her from the fact that Blaise wanted to make her friend cry, scream, and hopefully leave.

Hermione took it better than he had expected. Her face hardly changed, just elapsed back into smooth blankness, and she commented, "Kim's going to _die._"

"I think that's the point."

She sighed. Pointedly. He didn't see what the big deal was, himself. So what if Blaise had brought along a couple of friends? So what if they happened to be _gorgeous -_ if you went for that sort of thing? So what if Kim was going to curl up on the floor and cry like a tiny little girl at the sight of them?

Oh, this was going to be amusing.

"I'm going to go warn her," Hermione said hurriedly, rushing off to get to Kim before Ilsa and Elsa did.

Not likely, because Draco could already hear outraged cries of, "What are _they_ doing here?"

"These are my friends, Ilsa and Elsa. German supermodels, very popular over there. I've brought them over for a little... TLC."

"Oh, I'm sure you have!" Kim was saying hysterically.

Well, they could deal with Ilsa and Elsa themselves. In fact, he wished Hermione luck. She would need it. _He_, though, had a very different task in mind. He was going to have a little chat with Ron.

But the redhead wasn't sitting on the steps where Draco had left him. He had disappeared.

_Crap!_ If he was going to try and jump out a window again... Draco would have his head on a silver platter.

He dashed up the stairs, and quickly checked all the balconies. Ron wasn't sitting on any of them, waiting for a witness before he plunged down onto another mattress. By _God,_ the boy was a worry.

He heard faint sounds coming from below. Not German-supermodel-English-Kim-catfight sounds, but normal conversation. He followed the sound down the stairs. Surely not...

No, he could hear bickering, too. Thank the lord. He moved past those sounds, and peered through the cracked door at Harry, who seemed to be comforting Ron.

"I don't... know what to do about it all, Harry."

"I don't see what you problem is, Ron. You don't like Kim, you don't like Hermione... you're good."

It shouldn't have relieved Draco that his very steady girlfriend _wasn't_ being pined over by one of her psychotic best friends, but it kind of did.

"I _know_ that, but there's... there's just something wrong with me. I feel like I've... screwed it all up for everyone, you know?"

Oh. My. Merlin. Was he... was the boy finally seeing the light?!

Harry looked a little awkward at that point. His face took on a strained, panicked sort of look, and he tugged on the collar of his shirt.

"I, uh... erm-" He glanced around the room, taking in the fancy decor and the dominant green-ness of the room - Draco had to grudgingly admit that it _did_ complement his eyes rather to his advantage. In fact, Harry seemed to be concentrating on every square inch of space in the room that _wasn't_ Ron.

My, what a surprise. So Harry wasn't as oblivious to his best friend's tendency to, quite frankly, spoil everybody's intricate plans, as he seemed. As much as it pained Draco to say it, Harry was smarter than he looked.

Unfortunately, when it suited him, nor was Ron, who immediately snapped, "What, you agree?"

"Well..."

Brutal honesty, here, would be the best tack. Most entertaining for Draco, at least, and certainly most enlightening for Ron.

"If you think about it, mate, you've got a fairly bad track record. Y'know. Draco and Hermione, and then you did your mattress act... and Blaise and Kim... well, doesn't really need explanation."

Good old Harry. Always to be counted on if anyone needed some horrible truth delivered to them in the most gut-wrenching, below-the-belt sort of way. Had Ron almost forgotten about his 'mattress act'? Well, if so, it was now back in his head for the next three years. Had Harry's tact with the 'doesn't really need explanation' gone over Ron's head? Nope, it had hit him quite firmly, right where it hurts.

Ron looked a bit bewildered, or perhaps that's just how his face came out. A trickle of hurt made its way onto his face, and another more dominant one of sheepish admittance.

"Yeah, s'pose you're right. I really ought to... back off. Maybe I should just... I dunno, go chill with Lavender for a bit. She's got a flat in London, you know. Really getting into the Muggle spirit of things."

At least Harry had retained enough goodwill for his friend to immediately say, "Bad idea, Ron. Lavender's one you ought to stay away from. Remember sixth year?"

More sheepishness. A little more convincing, persuasion directed right to its target. Against Draco's hopes, Harry advised Ron _not_ to leave, and to just relax somewhere very far away from Kim. Also, to keep out of Blaise's way.

Well. That was, to say the least, unentertaining. So Ron wasn't hung up on Kim, or Hermione. It seemed that it was _Lavender_ who Ron had been bemoaning on the steps with Hermione. Regardless... Ron could concern himself with his own affairs, so long as he didn't confront Blaise and get blood on the carpet. _Draco_ had somewhere else to be.

As he walked down the marble corridor to Quincy's chambers, he contemplated. Aren't actions meant to be word a thousand words? 'I love you' wasn't really divisible into a thousand, he didn't think, but it would send his message across, wouldn't it?

"Oh _Quin-cy?_" he sang in his finest falsetto. "Where _art_ thou?"

Quincy appeared silently at the door to his bedroom, curling his fingers around the door with a drawn out, strangely eerie, "Hello..."

"I've got a task in which I was hoping you'd abett me." Draco resisted the urge to give a flourishing bow, by concentrating very hard on the door that seemed to be closing in his face...

"It's for Hermione," he added, in case that helped.

The door opened, its grooves and carvings seeming to lighten as it revealed one curious butler.

So Quincy was back on board. As much as it irked him that the passing mention of his girlfriend could call Quincy to attention and suddenly make him all... servile... it was still handy.

Two hours later, arguments were still a-raging in a bedroom, and Draco collapsed onto a kitchen stool with an exhausted sigh.

"Wow. Hard work is... hard."

"No, really, master?"

Was it just him, or did Quincy's tone sound oddly sardonic?

"Cookie?" Draco held out a hand and a Christmas cookie - a purple reindeer - flew into it. "Well. I think we did a marvellous job."

In reaching for the milk, he had to swat a loop of silver tinsel out of the way, and duck a flying, singing angel that he had bought for the grand total of thirteen Knuts. Yes, that's right. In a mere two hours, Draco had assembled Christmas for Hermione. The decoration-doin' had been left a little late this year - namely due to the eternal distraction of Hermione sitting all alone in that great big flat of hers which had called him from duty more than once. Hermione had openly bemoaned the lack of Christmas that appeared around the house, despite its speedy approach. However, with all that went on around the place - the drama, always the drama - she'd never managed to find the time to do anything about it. Now, she didn't need to.

"I concur," agreed Quincy finally, "it _isn't_ too shabby."

"Say 'ain't'. dude," Draco exclaimed. "C'mon! All the kids are sayin' it!"

"It _ain't_ too shabby?" Quincy inquired with distaste dripping from his lips. His mouth was curled in contempt, and he said the word with such delicate disgust and incredulousness that Draco could only grimace. He had _spoiled_ 'ain't' for him! Damn him!

Draco raised his hot chocolate mug for Quincy to clink, which he did - reluctantly. "We did good, didn't we?"

"Yes, we _did_ do _well_."

Well, that certainly called for a bit of eye rolling. Draco's grammar was a lost cause; Quincy ought to know that, after all these years. Oh, sure, he could whip out the 'ergo's and the 'wherefore's and the 'to _whom_ it may concern's when it was required of him, but now that school was gone and he was flying free, grammar be damned! He was a man, in his own house, and he had a _right_ to throw out a couple of grammatically-incorrect 'ain't's!

"Draco?"

"Places!" he directed upon hearing Hermione's dulcet tones. Actually, she was shrieking like a banshee as if she wanted him to give her an excuse to get out of there really quickly, but it was all the same, in the long run.

Quincy took his position at the foot of the stairs with a tray of hot chocolate, and Draco licked his lips, standing in _his_ place under the mistletoe. Hermione ventured out from the room of arguments, and stopped dead. Her eyes swept over it all - the tinsel, the tree, the decorations, the snow that delicately frosted the windows... A look of pure delight came over her face. She kind of paused, and the expression that had previously dominated her face - a really rather angry one - disappeared. A small smile turned up the corners of her lips, and her eyes looked as if they had caught on fire, a lovely, warm fire that wasn't going to burn him. He was thinking more marshmallows being softened than raging bushfire like usual. This was nice. _Hermione_ was nice.

"You did all this?" Her voice was soft, a harsh contrast to her shriek a moment ago.

As much as he would have liked to take all the credit - and would have, if Quincy hadn't been standing right there - he shook his head. "Quincy, too."

Damn the girl and her generous tendencies! A fraction - a _large_ fraction - of that beauteous smile was now being directed towards Quincy, along with a gentle, "Thanks."

She ran her hand along the handrail as she came down, having to raise it every now and again so she didn't disturb the fairy lights that Draco had carefully entwined around it.

It seemed that the surprise had been a success, what with her reaction. Even Draco had to admit that the atmosphere had been completely altered by it all, and the smell of baking cookies that now permeated the air wasn't unhelpful either.

"You like it?" he asked as she slowly descended the stairs towards him. "I thought, you know, since you didn't like the lack of Christmas around the place, I'd-"

She ran the last few steps, and flew into his arms. Technically, she flew into his chest, with her legs wrapped around him and her arms around his neck, but he was satisfied all the same. He looked up, and she gave a slow, smouldering smile. He loved it when Hermione was like this, forgetting her inhibitions and being natural and _sexy_, and he loved it even more when she bit her bottom lip and slowly kissed him.

The kiss transitioned fairly quickly from soft and obligatory-Christmas-mistletoe-y to one of those forgetting-anyone-else-exists sort of things, and they stayed like that for a fair few minutes. Quincy, with a disgusted sigh, walked away, but neither of them minded. Due to Draco's impressive upper body strength, he didn't really feel the need to put her down and stop kissing her, but he reluctantly did, when they heard loud footsteps at the top of the stairs. A moment later, they resumed, because there wasn't really a reason to stop. Who cares if anyone saw them? They'd have to get used to it.

"Ve did not come 'ere to be mistreated!" one of the German beauties was explaining indignantly to Blaise as the other one stomped down the stairs. Draco could hear the simultaneous German sighs and Blaise's pleading of "No, stay, she'll apologise to you, if you like-"

"I certainly will not!" Kim objected happily from somewhere above them.

Hermione felt as if she was about to break their kiss and go to her friend's aide, but when their lips broke apart and she looked at Kim, Kim gave her an enthusiastic wave and gestured for them to continue. Draco used to finger and thumb to turn her face back to him. This wasn't the situation he had imagined, but he was adaptable. Besides, looking at Hermione's expectant soft eyes and feeling her pressed up against him, he was having a little difficulty remembering what he'd pictured.

"Hermione, I-"

Those two words were being repeated a lot these days, and for once, he intended to finish the sentence.

"Ve vill _not_ stay 'ere and be insulted!"

"So ve leave. Call us, Blaise darling."

"Ooh, yes, ve still love you. Auf Wiedersehen, darling."

The door slammed, and punctuated Draco's chickening out.

"Look what you've done. Are you happy now?" Draco heard Blaise snap exasperatedly as he contemplated his disgrace and failure.

"Yes, I am," was Kim's contented reply, as Ron cried out, "Cookies! Oh, and did I hear mention of a Christmas Eve movie marathon tonight?" and footsteps thumped down the stairs, like hammers thumping nails into the coffin of Draco's words.

Oh well. It could always wait until tomorrow.


	12. Getting a Bit Tipsy

_Unfortunately, this is the last chapter of this particular year, because of the six-chapter-a-year format I've adopted. However, if anyone has any concerns - loose ends that need tying, questions, suggestions, anything - I'd be happy to take them into account. Also, please keep in mind that I'm from Australia where the drinking age is eighteen. I know, I probably should have researched it in Britain, but... I'm lazy? Sorry._

_So, enjoy, ladies and gentlemen - gentlemen? Are there boys reading this? - and if you've got any suggestions for how Draco's nineteenth year should turn out, I'm all ears. Oh, and beware, this is a long one. _

* * *

_Chapter 12_

_Getting a Bit Tipsy_

Draco fell asleep in the middle of _Casablanca_. Hermione was huddled by his side, eyes glued to the screen and occasionally exchanging a gushing glance with Ginny or Kim, who sat on her other side. The four of them were squashed onto one couch. Blaise was alone in an armchair, sulking about the disappearance of his German babes, Ron was sprawled on the floor, perilously close to collapsing into the popcorn bowl, and Harry was gazing at the ceiling and furtively turning it different colours with his wand.

The evening had started out perfectly, all arranged and organised. The two couples had a couch each for any cuddling that might occur, and Blaise had an armchair to himself because he was grouchy, and Ron and Kim were _very_ far apart. It had been planned out to perfection.

And it had stayed that way, through _Breakfast at Tiffany's_ - Hermione's choice; 'It's a _wonderful_ book, Draco, don't be so disdainful just because it's got a _girl_ in it!' - and the Rocky Horror Picture Show - which had been disturbing, to say the least, because all the girls knew the words and somehow Ron knew the dances. But as _soon_ as they'd switched on another old chick flick, the plans fell to pieces. Kim and Ginny bounced over to Draco's couch to gush with Hermione, and the boys were left bored, alone and sulking. Draco, eventually, gave up on trying to coax Hermione away from her friends, and fell asleep with his mouth open and his head pressed up against her chest. Harry was left to entertain himself, Ron looked as if he was about to follow Draco's example, and Blaise was, of course, off with the fairies, thinking about his girlfriends and glaring at Kim.

Christmas Eve should have been a time of fun, merriment, and _eggnog!_ Not stodgy old movies, damn it! Letting the girls select half of the playlist had been a _bad_ idea, though it wasn't like there was anything he could have done once they'd put forward the suggestion. He had been looking forward to a few old classics - preferably cowboy movies, _not_ this crap - and then a few guns-bombs-explosions movies. _Not_ this.

'Course, he wouldn't have any objections to watching romantic movies if it were just he and Hermione. There was a high possibility of taking inspiration from Bogie and his girl, and it was almost a certainty that they would recline together on the sofa, all close and intimate. And, as a matter of fact, he'd actually been kind of eager to see _Casablanca_, under such circumstances. He heard there was gambling. He was down for that.

But amongst five other teenagers? Wasn't the best time he could imagine having. The fun and possible romance was sucked out of it like some sort of vacuum metaphor he couldn't be bothered thinking of there, because he was more preoccupied with sleeping through the next three or four soppy movies they insisted on showing.

When Hermione realised that he was asleep, and that his head on her chest wasn't just a weird version of copping a feel, she pinched him. You wouldn't think she'd be upset with him for _not_ trying to feel her up with his skull, but no, apparently not. It seemed that she was a bit ticked off that he'd dozed off in the middle of one of her favourite movies.

Her pinch stung his delicate skin, and boy, did he wake up.

"Ouch!" he cried, and Ginny immediately waved her wand at the old-fashioned projector and glared at him.

"Okay, shut it, Malfoy."

Kim rounded on him as well. "_Casablanca_ is _not_ to be interrupted. _Now_ we'll have to start it from the _beginning!_"

"No!" yelled Blaise, Harry and Ron, all snapping out of their stupors and glaring daggers at Draco.

He cowered, but then recovered his masculinity. "Okay, no. You girls can do whatever you like, but guys? Follow me." He pecked Hermione's cheek and led the boys in a line to his bedroom.

"What are we doing?" Harry was the first to put forward the logical question. Ron looked equally confused, but Blaise was grinning. Draco winked at them all, Blaise especially, and stood on the bed to unscrew the grille of the air vent.

"My parents were snoopy," he explained to the others, looking over his shoulder at them. Blaise jumped up on the bed to take the grille when it was passed down, and peered in.

"Same old hiding spot," he commented. "Didn't you hear, Draco? Change your patterns!"

Triumphant, Draco withdrew a sparkling gold key and held it up to show the others. "Behold, gentleman," he informed them, "the key to your Christmas Eve."

Blaise was already lifting up a corner of black carpet. Draco bent down and ceremoniously inserted the key in a small hole that he found there.

The other two looked at each other as if they had a feeling they were missing out on a rather vital piece of the puzzle. Blaise, however, was in the know. Had been since about their third year.

A chunk of the wall in the shape of an arched door swung open. Two pairs of eyes popped. Blaise dove in, and emerged with two bottles in each hand, some sort of fancy alcohol.

"Let there be _grog!_" he cried, and Draco plunged in after him. There was a short flight of stairs to descend before entering a small cavin-like room, specifically designed to escape Lucius' notice in any magical scans of the house, and bewitched by a helpful Ravenclaw senior he'd seduced when he was thirteen or fourteen. Regardless of its furtive design, it was furnished to the best of Draco's ability. Its decor was red - green had been getting tiresome for him, and red seemed fitting for a liquor den - and it was decked out with shelves and and boxes, filling the room to the ceiling. It had taken him a fair amount of time to hone his system and accumulate so much alcohol, but he had done it, with Blaise's help. He imported it from everywhere, paying from his personal bank account, and paid them extra to disguise the order as something else to put Lucius off the track. The deliveries would be Transfigured into something small so that he could smuggle them into the house in his pocket, and his parents would live their lives oblivious to his deceit. It was hardly his fault if he wanted to have a little fun every now and again, and his parents were too stiff to provide him with the means. So he'd had to provide it himself. For years, it had infuriated him that he had to drink in secret, that his father measured the levels in his own stash so Draco couldn't even nick some of his every now and again.

Now, though, it was coming in handy.

Of course, he could have moved it all to the proper cellar. He had intended to, at first, but there was something sacrilegious about drinking his expensive but crude liquor with his father's fancy wine. So he kept his own little stash, and forgot about it. He couldn't bring himself to dispose of the contents of Lucius' cellar, so he and Blaise and occasionally Quincy were slowly drinking through it all, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. God, the man had a lot of booze. It was a pity it was the pompous, gross sort.

Ron let out a whoop when he followed Draco down into the room. Draco didn't normally allow people in there; indeed, he had intended for Harry and Ron to stay in his bedroom - privilege enough! - while he pulled out a crate of something brewed.

But he couldn't very well ask the boy to leave now.

Could he?

It was too late. Harry dove down after him. He'd always been a bit calmer than his friend, but at the sight of a room filled with free alcohol - friend's rate, at least - he lost his calmness. When Ginny was around, he was all willing and obedient and whipped, but when it was just the boys, he was... well, a boy. More than can be said for him when he was being all lovesick around Ginny.

"Blimey, Mal- Draco! I've never seen so much alcohol in my _life!_"

"I take it you've never drank that much, then?"

Blaise smirked. "That's about to change."

Did it ever.

They sat on Draco's floor at first, as Draco used his wand to cut open a wooden crate of something exotic and blue that should never be drunk straight. Trying to sip that like you would anything else... well, it didn't work. A round of shots just made them sleepy, and Draco knew that if he intended to spend a happy, peaceful Christmas, four hangovers wouldn't make the girls too happy.

So they moved on to something familiar - Firewhiskey. Seemed to work rather well. They sat in a circle - well, a square - with a few bottles in the middle of them. Blaise was the most normal drunk. He kept Summoning water - or pouring it out of the tip of his wand at them - and insisting that they had to fight the hangovers.

Ron was the most amusing out of the four of them, but they'd all expected that. Of course, Draco and Blaise did their fair share of embarrassing things when under the influence - they had one annulled marriage to prove it - but Ron beat them both. He was so entertaining that Draco actually forgot about drinking himself for a while. He was satisfied just watching Ron make an idiot of himself. When he started pretending to be a gay elephant, though, and prepared to vomit out his nose, Draco suggested a hasty move to the living room. They were all too drunk now to care if the girls found out. Or, they were so horrified by Ron's performance - Rocky Horror had _not_ been a good choice to watch before getting drunk - that it had slipped their minds.

They were left alone for at least an hour. Either, the girls didn't care, or more likely, they couldn't hear the sounds of projectile vomiting over the explosions coming from the projector. Yes, it's just typical. Draco had managed to slip _one_ guns-bombs-explosions movie into the lineup, and he _misses_ it?!

However, watching Ron aim his vomit into a swimming pool he had imagined was amusing enough for the time being.

"_Scourgify_!" Blaise yelled for the seventh time. "Good Lord, Ronald, aim for things that _exist, _next time!"

"Sorry," he mumbled, giving a burp.

"You're disgusting," Draco said haughtily, knocking back a shot of something _spicy_.

"And you're _pretty_," slurred Ron, shifting a little closer to Harry on the floor. "Harry..."

"Get... g-get away from me," Harry mumbled, somersaulting away from him and ramming his head into a wall. The walls shook and a picture of Draco felt to the floor.

"Hey!" Draco leapt over and cradled it. "Be nice, I like this one!"

"If you vomit on me," the painting warned, a scowl on his face, "I will make your life _hell._"

Feeling a little queasy – more than a little, actually – Draco hung the painting upside down on the wall, and turned to the bucket.

"I'm going to be-"

Now, Draco was usually a marvellous drunk – with the obvious exception of a certain marriage a year or so ago – but after consuming so much in so little time, it was _very_ difficult to fight the bubbly demons.

"_What is going on here?"_

A string of slurred swearwords spilt out of Draco's lips. Harry froze, looking like a deer caught in headlights. Blaise shot an exaggerated wink at Kim, and Ron continued to rock in his corner, now missing his pants as well as his shirt.

The girls were all standing in the doorway in the standard catching-boyfriends/friends-drunk-on-Christmas-Eve pose, hands on hips and scowls on faces. All at once, they burst into action. Ginny dove at Harry, who was trying to make a graceful exit through the solid wall. Kim moved straight past Blaise and instead threw Ron's clothes at him. Hermione, though, stayed motionless for a moment more than the others. From his view on the floor, she looked like a furious goddess. Two, actually, because his vision was a little affected by the whiskey. She took a few slow steps towards him, seemingly to emphasise her approach, when in actual fact she was making sure he wasn't going to vomit on her.

And then, he found himself four feet in the air, curled in the same position he had been on the floor but now with a startling lack of carpet beneath him.

Hermione started walking out of the room, towards the front door. Helpless, he followed after her in the air.

"Urgh, movement bad," Blaise muttered beside him in the air, clutching at his stomach. Kim's wand was the one controlling him, and was it just Draco or did she seem to be behaving excessively violently? Ramming him into walls, jiggling him up and down _far_ more than was necessary... It seemed that little Kim was finally getting her own back at Blaise for his little stunt with the supermodels.

The crisp air bit at his skin, especially painful because of his increased blood pressure from the alcohol. What was worse, though, was the realisation that shot through his head like an electric shock – never fun when soused – when he saw that Hermione was hovering him over the freezing outside swimming pool.

"Hermione, _no!_"

He plunged into the water, and it felt like a solid layer of ice rather than simple water. The sting of the water-cleansing spells burnt his eyes, which he had inconveniently forgotten to close. His clothes billowed out around him, his hair flew upwards. Most dominant was the freezing cold, and the shock to his system that had disintegrated a good deal of his drunkenness.

When his lungs started to strain and his limbs started to flail, he felt himself wrenched back into the air, even colder now that he was wet than it had been before.

Once he had inhaled one deep breath of stabbing, horrible air, the water encased him again, and the process continued.

Eventually, Hermione let him climb out of the pool, feeling rather sorry for himself. He collapsed in a wet, shivering heap by the edge of the pool, coughing and shaking.

"You are," he managed to gasp out, "pure _evil._"

"You shouldn't have gotten drunk on _Christmas Eve_," she retorted.

With a start, Draco realised that Blaise was still underwater, and by the looks of things, he seemed to be having a little difficulty breathing.

"Kim," Hermione was saying calmly. "Don't you think he's had enough?"

"_No_," Kim said viciously.

"Bring him up, you maniac!" Draco yelled.

"No!"

Hermione took over, using her own wand to simultaneously Disarm Kim and bring Blaise out of the water.

"Hey!"

"Sorry, but I won't be responsible for _your_ murderous crimes. Come on. Go back inside and help Ginny with Ron and Harry. I'll deal with _these_ two."

Uh oh. Somehow, Draco got the feeling from the tone in her voice that he was in for a lecture, and possibly another session of being drowned.

Surprisingly, though, she just folded her arms. "Come on."

Traipsing miserably after her, he and Blaise made their way inside, dripping wet and feeling rather sorry for themselves. Draco felt like a drowned ferret. It wasn't a pleasant feeling.

"Blaise," Hermione said gently. "How about you go take a bath?"

"Bath..." Blaise murmured, looking uplifted, and trod off to his bathroom.

She was by no means being gentle with Draco. In fact, she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt – which was looking rather the worse for wear by this time – and dragged him into his bedroom. One flick of her wand made the water in the inside pool steam, another created bubbles and gave the water a misty, soapy quality. Without another word, she placed her hands on the small of his back, and heaved.

He fell in, flailing. As he landed in the water for the third – or was it fourth? – time today, he contemplated his predicament. You would think that by now, when a girl got behind you looking evil, when there is a large expanse of water before you, you would jump. Draco thought so, too, but he was drunk, so he had an excuse.

Actually, this was nowhere near as bad as it had been outside. It was just like a giant bath, like the Prefects' bathroom at Hogwarts, but with fewer perving girls. No perving girls, more like, because Hermione was determinedly picking at her fingernails.

He floated over to her on his back, arms cradling his head. "What's wrong, Hermione? You know, you're _allowed_ to look at me naked."

"You're not _naked_-" Hermione began, lifting her head with a scowl splashed across her face.

She'd obviously missed the part where he'd ripped his clothes off.

"I know you're annoyed that we got a bit toasted while you girls watched movies, but I'm having a bit of a difficult time, what with Ron and Kim and Blaise and everything. Of course, I regret it _now_, after the damage is done, but I promise we'll all be fine for tomorrow. You know how we're supposed to drink a lot of water? Well, I think you've been responsible for my inhaling enough to fill a pool. Quite literally, too."

She sank down to the side of the water, rolling up the legs of her jeans to let her feet dangle in the water.

"I know," she sighed. "It's so confusing and complicated, having warring best friends, isn't it? It _would_ be a lot easier for us all if they could just kiss and make up."

"But since when have they gone for the _easy_ option?" He paddled over to where Hermione was sitting, and rested his arms on the side. His head was clearer now, whether it was the cold shock of the water outside, or the warm one of this, or a combination of the two. He had regained control of his senses, enough to be able to understand the consequences of pulling Hermione into the pool. Instead, he turned his face upwards to her, a clear signal that he was demanding a kiss from his girlfriend after his _very_ traumatic evening.

"Have you vomited today?" she asked pointedly.

He didn't even have to lie when he shook his head violently. He, at least, had been able to hold it in. Barely, though.

Taking his answer into account, she carefully bent her head and applied her lips to his. She must have caught some of whatever they were drinking, because she snapped her head away, and exclaimed, "My _God,_ what _was_ that?"

"Erm..."

She was horrified, for a moment, so he decided – possibly against his better judgement, but he was drunk, he had an excuse! – to grab her around the waist and tug her into the pool with him.

Her scream was punctuated by a loud splash. When she resurfaced, pushing hair back from her face and contorting her mouth into that yelling position, he darted away from her, unimpeded by clothes now that he'd removed them all. Letting out a shriek, she followed him to the other end of the pool. The water was murky enough that she couldn't see his body, which was convenient for the whole plan of swimming under her legs and frightening the crap out of her.

"Draco," she gasped, flailing in her jeans and sweater, "you're a-"

"Hush now." He abandoned his plan, and instead grabbed her around the stomach and swam her over to the edge. Once she was breathing and had more or less stopped coughing, he instructed her gently, "You know, it's much easier without clothes. Nuisance-y things, they are," while carefully extracting her from her sweater.

She obediently raised her arms so that he could pull it off her all the easier, and voluntarily wriggled out of her jeans as well. Underwear stayed on, though, which was a good thing because Draco still had his as well. It had occurred to him somewhere during his underwater striptease that getting out entirely naked would be an interesting task, especially if Hermione was still cross with him. Well, she wasn't, but it would have been entirely unfair for there to be one-sided nakedness. Not that he would have complained if it was her, though.

"See?" he exclaimed, flinging her clothes onto his saturated carpet. "Much better, _hein?_"

She didn't reply, just dove under the water and glided to the other end. He could make out the shape of her hair, flowing out behind her head. She looked like a mermaid, though the effect would have been _greatly_ aided if she had been completely naked. And, you know, had a tail.

"Hermione?" She had vanished from his sight, hidden by the soap in the water that was cleansing them as they swam.

A bubble rose to the surface of the water, and then another. Before he had any time at all to comprehend, Hermione quietly rose out of the water, her hair straight and dark with droplets running down her shoulders, and kissed him quickly and softly. He took a second to enjoy the moment, and then moved forward to kiss her back.

Midway through their scantily clad kiss, Kim burst in through the door.

"That's it! I _cannot _deal with him _anymore!_ Nobody can make me! I think I'd better leave- oh, sorry. I'll, erm... get out of your hair."

"Wait."

Draco swore in his head. Why did Hermione have to be such a decent person?

"Did something happen between the two of you?"

"Yeah, he walked in on me in the shower," Kim snapped, hand on the door. "And he was still a bit drunk, so he was all, 'Let's talk about you and me; what's going on between us?' and I'm like, 'Oh, God, get a clue, moron' but he refused to give up so I ran away and he sobered up and we fought a bit more, and- look, get back to what you were doing. We'll talk later."

A few seconds after she stormily vacated the room, just as Draco and Hermione had stopped laughing embarrassingly and started eyeing each other up again, Blaise barrelled in.

"Have you seen Kim?" he demanded, paying no attention to their lack of clothes or current situation. He looked particularly tall and menacing from down there in the pool, especially without a shirt on. Not that Draco liked that sort of thing; he just understood how it could possibly intimidate and/or stun a girl into submission. Kim, though, hadn't seemed very submissive.

"Erm... perhaps. Why?" Draco asked, taking charge now that it was _his_ friend bursting in and being the annoying one.

"We were having a conversation. A pretty... potent one. Y'know. We've talked about this, you nut."

"Actually, we haven't-"

"But do go on," Hermione finished, glaring at Draco.

"Well, I was kind of telling her that I wished all that crap with the Weasel hadn't happened, and that I really enjoyed the time we were together, y'know, all that sort of thing, but she _ran away from me!_"

Hermione let out an excited gasp, and hauled herself up onto the side of the pool so she could wave her arms excitedly as well. "Oh my God! You like Kim again!"

"Still," corrected Draco, guessing the emotion in Blaise's eyes.

"Again," Blaise lied with a frown.

"Oh, this is _fantastic!_"

"Why?"

Hermione leant over and whispered in his ear, "Kim confessed to me, she's still got feelings for him. Well, _obviously_; why else would she have been such a dolt this week?" He could smell his own alcohol on her breath, which formed a cloud of steam in the hot air when Hermione announced to Blaise, "Find her, tell her, speak very clearly because she's not exactly stable at the moment. Now, go!"

Blaise looked nervous for just a moment, before a feeling of confidence seemed to come over him. "Right," he said, squaring his jaw and nodding his head. "I'm going to go... and tell her? Seriously? Are you _sure_ this'll work?"

"Positive," Hermione said confidently, shooing him out of the room. Once the door was firmly closed, encasing them once again in their private sanctuary, she climbed out of the pool completely and headed for the shower.

"What are you doing?" he asked hesitantly, hearing the water run.

"Showering," she called through the curtain.

"Want company?"

"Oh, wait for me out there, you idiot."

He did, reluctantly. When she emerged, towelled, robed and still all damp and clean, she reclined on the bed. "Are you showering?" she inquired archly, "or joining me?"

Like _that_ one needed any thought.

At eleven fifty six, Draco realised something important. He _knew_ it, the answer to the question of life. Or, he knew why he hadn't been able to bring himself to tell his girlfriend that he loved her since that fateful night at Hogwarts, when he had been afraid of her dying or him dying or them being separated or disfigured... After saying it so often, in such a situation, it made the meaning of such words mean so much more. It wasn't that he didn't mean them; it was just that it felt wrong, comparing their now-situation, all cosy and cushy in their fantastic lives, to their _then_-situation, when they had been fighting for their lives and didn't know whether they were be alive the next day.

He had never told anyone he loved them before. Never in an average, run-of-the-mill relationship had he _loved_ anyone, let alone told them so. Until Hermione, of course. When he had been on the battlefield, and directly afterwards when he was still reeling with the shock of being alive, the words had spilled out of his mouth like honey. Now, though, that they were living normal lives again, his words choked up in his throat and he felt like it was sacrilegious to use them or something.

Possessing this knowledge changed him, somehow, and he realised that he didn't have to subconsciously hold himself back until the next time they faced a life or death situation to let Hermione know what he felt. She already knew, of course; his repeated proclamations back in sixth year had told her that much. But he needed to say it, to hear himself say the words and realise they weren't all that scary after all.

"Hermione?"

She was lying on her back, looking up at the ceiling. Even the darkness of the room, he could see the glint of her open eyes, catching the thin sliver of moonlight from between the curtains.

"Mmm?"

"I..."

She rolled over to face him, propping her head up on her hand.

"Love you?"

Without a word, she put her hands on either side of his face and pulled him to her so she could kiss him.

"I love you too, Draco," she admitted, in a quiet murmur that confirmed his suspicions that she had felt the same struggle.

He finally realised why every other couple in the world went around saying they loved each other all the time. Until that moment, he had been fairly well oblivious to the reason behind it, but now, it became clear. Because of how it felt when the other person said it back, that's why.

The clock ticked around to midnight.

"Merry Christmas!" called Ginny from her and Harry's room, on the other side of the house.

"Merry Christmas!" chorused Kim and Blaise at the same time, sounding as though they were in the same room.

Draco's door swung open, the light from the hallway silhouetting the tall and short figures, kissing furiously up against the door. Blaise lifted Kim off her feet and kissed her once more before she breathlessly addressed them.

"Draco, Hermione, come on."

"We're all awake," explained Blaise, "so we thought... let's _party!_"

Draco sat up, wearing a pair of his old pyjama bottoms. Hermione climbed out of bed, her legs bare but for the bottom of the matching pyjama shirt that was all she wore. At the same time, they headed for the door, without even complaining about being disturbed from their intimate moment. Hermione's hand tightened in his, and their eyes met. She looked exhilarated.

"Merry Christmas," he whispered, kissing her cheek.

"Yeah, Merry Christmas."

There was a gold-wrapped box under the Christmas tree with Hermione's name on it, containing a pair of diamond earrings he'd bought for her sometime in October, but from the look in her eyes, he had a feeling that he had already given her the Christmas present she had wanted all along.


	13. Early Presents

_**Part 3**_

_Chapter 13_

_Early Presents_

It was two thirty seven in the morning. They had been fighting for five hours and seven minutes.

"Oh, my God... could you be any more immature?"

"Well, I think if I tried hard enough, yeah, I could. But let's not talk about me. What about _you?_ Is it _impossible_ for you to think about anyone else for _one_ second of your busy busy day?"

"Are you mocking the fact that I have a job, and a life?"

"No, I'm mocking the fact that you deigned to 'squeeze me in'."

They glared at each other from across the room. He was by the desk, staring angrily, and she was sitting on the bed, lacing up her shoes with trembling fingers. It wasn't a scared trembling. It was an 'I'm so mad I'm having trouble controlling my fingers and not murdering you' trembling. She was doing a fairly decent job of it.

"Okay," she said suddenly, standing up and squaring her shoulders for a fight. "I refuse to let you tease me just because _I_ don't live off a trust fund, just because _my _parents won't pay for everything I want! If you're so opposed to the idea of someone _earning_ their way through the world, well, you shouldn't be with me."

"Well, maybe that should change!"

"Fine!"

In the hotel room next to theirs, Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

"Time?"

Hermione raised her wrist and announced, "It's two thirty eight."

"Five hours. _Five hours?_"

"Yep."

"These people are messed up."

Was it too much to ask, to expect that two people could put their issues aside for _Christmas_, at least? Was it _really_ that much of an imposition on them to ask that they be able to spend a happy, pleasant Christmas with five of their closest friends?

As Draco voiced these thoughts, for the fifth or sixth time this afternoon, he gazed around the hotel room. The ceiling had gotten tedious after five hours, and he had already counted all of the stencilled flowers. A hundred and seven, in case you were wondering, and they seemed to be _growing._

The room was almost bare, and the only furniture that wasn't bolted to the floor was that which was too big to steal. This was the _last,_ he repeated _last_, time he was letting Hermione choose the hotel. Sure, they were only staying for one night, in between the train ride from Zurich and the underwater train under the Channel back to England, but one night of squalor and discomfort was far too much for someone of Draco's pedigree.

Hermione had taken three weeks off work, two more than is usually allotted to employees at the Ministry of Magic because she could sweet talk her boss, and those two illegal weeks had been spent chillin' like a villain in Switzerland. They had skied, they had drank their combined liquid weight in hot chocolate, and they had done It. A lot. They were _so_ going back next year.

Now, though, it was back to old Blighty for their now-traditional Malfoy Manor Christmas. Ginny and Harry had been planning their wedding at the Burrow for most of December, but they were finally escaping Molly's clutches and fleeing to the Manor for a few days. Ron was Lord knew where, but according to a letter Hermione had received from him via Harry, he was on the run, but thought he would manage to make it. He was lying low, apparently, and _yes_, Draco _did_ plan to tease him about that when he arrived.

Blaise and Kim were the couple in the room next to theirs. Having been visiting Blaise's mother at her holiday home in Belgium, they had met up with Draco and Hermione for a day or so before they all travelled back together. They had only encountered them ten hours ago. Already, Draco wanted to string them both up by their intestines. Together, of course, so they could continue working out their issues, and in a soundproof torture chamber, so they wouldn't be _inflicting it on everybody else._

They were driving Draco insane. He hadn't even been able to get any sleep, because every time he and Hermione were on the verge of drifting off, there would be a crash, or a new burst of shouting, and he would be jolted from the prospect of sleep for another few hours.

"We're supposed to be on the train in five hours," Hermione complained beside him. "We're going to be _dead_."

"We can sleep on the train," he tried to console her, too tired to lift his hand from his stomach.

"Not with _them_ on it, we can't."

Yes, she had a point. That was it. He had to resign himself to the fact that he would not be getting any sleep for at least another eighteen or so hours. It wasn't an appealing prospect, considering that he hadn't gotten a lot of sleep at the snow. He and Hermione had been kind of busy during the nights for the past few weeks, if you knew what he meant.

Ten minutes had passed. He was bored.

"Hey, 'Mione." He rolled onto his side. Even though the lights were out, he could see her perfectly. After all, he'd had the time to cultivate his night vision.

"Hmm?"

"What the hell are they even fighting about this time?"

Hermione paid far more attention to their never ending bickering matches than Draco did, because _she_ would be the one to comfort both Blaise and Kim in turn. Blaise had given up on turning to Draco for friendly advice after the first fifteen minutes or so. Draco much preferred this new arrangement, where Hermione took turns dealing with the two idiots and more often than not sent them on their way, perfectly happy in their rediscovered coupledom. Of course, they would be fighting again within the next ten minutes, but that was irrelevant. Ten minutes of peace was a luxury at this point.

"He expects her to jump to attention whenever he has a free moment. She has a job."

"I guess there's no question whose side you're on, then," Draco said sarcastically. Why did Hermione _always_ have to take the side of _her_ friend?

"Well, I'm of the opinion that she's in the right this time. Why? Don't you?"

"I think that if they have spare time that coincides they ought to want to spend most of it together."

"But that's the thing. Blaise has a wealth of spare time, because, well, he doesn't _do_ anything. _Kim_ has hardly any, and she's expected to spend every second of it with him," Hermione argued.

"So she doesn't want to spend time with him? Wow, nice girlfriend."

Draco didn't want to fight with Hermione; it was _their_ fight, not his. Apparently, Hermione felt the same way.

"Are we _really_ going to fight over their fight? Again? What is this, the fourth time?"

"Something like that."

He stretched a silent hand towards her over the bedcovers. She took it immediately, not even having to look to know where it was. They lay like that, holding hands in the darkness that looked light to them because they had been awake for so long, until the sun came up.

The first thing he did when he opened his eyes and saw the dark circles beneath Hermione's eyes was dash to the mirror himself. Sure enough, he had matching rings of tiredness.

"What a pair," Hermione observed, coming up beside him. They stood there for a moment, looking at themselves in the mirror. Hermione was right; they were an interesting pair. He was tall; she only came up to his nose. He was fair; her hair was dark. Their eyes contrasted, too, with their grey and brown. All in all, they were a couple of opposites.

Wasn't it a law of nature that they were attracted to each other, then?

Draco instinctively dressed warmly while Hermione showered. Even if it wasn't cold out, the atmosphere would cool down as soon as they met up with Blaise and Kim. They had been silent for an hour and a half. They were obviously giving each other cold shoulders.

She emerged in a towel, hair dripping. It appeared that she had forgotten to take her clothes into the shower with her. Well, okay. Maybe, just maybe, he had distracted her with a kiss and then pushed her in there before she had the chance.

It amused him, though, that she was still so shy about being naked around him. Of course she had been before, but she didn't seem to want to walk around the hotel room without her clothes on. That was a pity. It would have made the boring room a lot more interesting.

Of course, the drizzling, cloudy weather might have had something to do with her frenzy to get clothes on.

He knocked on the wall. "Blaise? Kim?"

"Yes?" they both answered haughtily.

"Oh, right. You're both alive. Funny, I figured that if you were being silent, something _must_ be wrong."

That, of course, set them off again.

"Well, perhaps if Blaise wasn't such a selfish little prig, I would talk to him."

"And perhaps if Kim could remove her head from her arse for just a moment, she'd be able to hear me talking to her."

"You're an arsehole, Blaise, and you haven't said a word to me all morning!"

"Funny that."

He left them to bicker and joined Hermione in the bathroom while he waited for them to sort things out. She was just pulling her sweater over her stomach when he entered; he had _just_ missed a spectacular viewing.

"Did you talk to him?" she asked, combing her hair.

"Yep. I'll give it five minutes."

In five minutes exactly, there was a knock on the door. He could hear a pleasant conversation going on outside the door. When he opened it, Blaise was talking enthusiastically about their plans for the rest of the holiday, his arm draped around her tiny frame. She was listening quietly, occasionally putting forward an idea or two.

"Morning!" they both sang chirpily. "Ready to go?"

Their bags were piled beside them. Would it be bad of him to roll his eyes? The temptation was almost too much, but he resisted it until he saw Hermione rolling hers.

"What?" Kim demanded indignantly as she and Hermione began to wheel their suitcases down the stairs. "Why did you and Draco roll your eyes at us?"

Blaise, too, was looking at Draco expectantly. He shoved the key in the pocket of his trousers and started downstairs without answering his unspoken question.

"What? Seriously, _what?_" came Blaise's voice, plaguing him all the way to reception, and then to the car park.

Before they climbed into the taxi, Draco clapped him on the shoulder and warned, "Let this be fair warning to you. If you argue all Christmas, I will murder you."

To his intense surprise, Draco found himself possessing the ability to fall asleep on the train, with the help of Hermione and her Muting spell. Sometimes he loved dating a genius.

He was almost immediately engrossed in a particularly exciting dream where he was being chased by a crowd of angry donuts. They chased him through a maze, past a room where Hermione was naked, and around a laboratory like in Rocky Horror. They were approaching... one was advancing... it brushed against his arm, and he felt it prickle.

"Draco."

_How_ did the donut know his name?

"Draco, wake up."

"What?"

He peeled his eyelids open, to find that he was standing on the snow-covered ground in front of his house. Wow. Having not seen the Manor for months – he had been bunking with Hermione for a while – seeing it suddenly covered in snow and looking rather beautiful was a shock to his system. Not only that, but there was a reindeer on the roof. A real, live reindeer.

"A _PONY!_" he shrieked, running at the wall. He didn't know what he was expecting to do, exactly, but he found that he could spring up the side of the house like Spiderman. Once he was balancing precariously on the snowy shingles of the roof, the reindeer turned to him and informed him, batting its dark eyes, "You really ought to brush your teeth." With a dainty skip in its step, it trotted over to him as if the roof was solid ground. "Hop on." A bell rang out temptingly, and he recognised the red and green ribbon around its neck.

"This," he announced, climbing onto its back with ease, "is the best Christmas-" It leapt off the side of the roof, and they began to plunge downwards for a sickening second before the wind caught them and they swooped easily around the yard, "EVER!"


	14. Snow Wars and Arrivals

_Chapter 14_

_Snow Wars and Arrivals_

Draco hadn't noticed the others go inside while he and Bambi had been frolicking, but when the reindeer started making disparaging comments about how much he weighed, he grew suddenly very tired of her and decided to join them. His bags were lying in a snow-dusted heap by the trees they had stood near, and the front door was wide open.

"Gosh," he mumbled, dragging his suitcase after him, "some people... so _rude._"

"No way," he heard Kim exclaim excitedly from in the nearest kitchen. He dumped his bags by the door, since he'd never really bothered to acquire any upper body strength and had already gotten bored of it, anyway. The other three were sitting on stools in the kitchen, eating biscotti.

"Christmas biscotti without me," he observed, shaking his head. "I'm offended."

"Sorry." Hermione smiled at him in that melting way and offered him the plate. Chocolate, almond, chocolate, almond. An interesting dilemma. Well, easily solved. He _did_ have two hands.

Kim and Blaise were still on good terms, which... seemed strange. What, they only fought when Draco was trying to catch up on his beauty sleep? A conspiracy! They were jealous of his attractiveness, and so they'd hatched this darling little plan to make him ugly. Not going to work. He'd wised up to their tricks now.

"I'm going to have a nap," he announced, sticking one biscotti in his pocket and the other in his mouth. Hermione looked reluctant for a moment as she put down her coffee cup, but almost immediately followed him into his bedroom, leaving the other two there.

"Trying to escape, by any chance?" she asked from the doorway.

Like she actually had to guess.

"Maybe."

He rolled onto his stomach with his feet on the pillows, so he could look at Hermione properly.

"They were more fun when they'd broken up," he complained. "At least _then_, it was just fighting, no break up dirtiness."

"Oh, don't be disgusting, Draco. You should be _happy_ that they aren't depressed and miserable anymore. Besides, they've been back together for a _year_, or had you only just realised?"

They hadn't been annoying at first. For a few months, it had been nice. They had gone out to dinner, the four of them, and there had been no fights whatsoever, except for the petty little arguments over Blaise's best side – she had argued left, he insisted both – or what to eat. In fact, Blaise had been staying with Kim in her apartment a few nights a week, which must have been strange for the boy who'd had his toenails trimmed for him. Not that Draco could talk.

But really, they'd been a typical couple until Blaise's mother had come to visit. He hadn't heard exact details, but in a nut shell, the woman was hot, but _crazy._ Psychotic, Kim had stated, before launching into an impression of Ms. Zabini's inspection of her flat. Of course, that had set Blaise off, who had always been particularly defensive whenever anyone cracked any 'ya mum' jokes at Hogwarts. Basically, they never stopped fighting, now. It had been four months of mind numbing arguments, and Draco was just about ready to cut off some tongues.

"Oh, I realised," he replied to Hermione's question dryly. "How could I _not_ realise? They've made it obvious _all_ over the house. In the kitchen as we speak, probably."

"Oh, that's just-"

Before she could launch into one of those fascinating monologues about how disgusting his mind was, he held up a finger and gestured for her to listen. They both concentrated in silence for a moment, until voices reached them.

"We're good," he said gratefully, winking at Hermione, who relapsed into her 'Draco's disgraceful' face and opened her mouth. Before she'd had a chance to speak, _again_, he interrupted with, "Okay, how about a moratorium on my flaws, and let's do something fun!"

"I'm not going to sleep with you _now_. We've got guests!"

"Bor-_ing!_"

Instead, he was perfectly satisfied with instigating a snow fight, so he started to pull on his winter accessories. Today, he was going blue toned, to highlight his eyes. He had a beanie and a scarf and a pair of thick gloves. After a moment of deliberation, he swapped the beanie with a blue beret, and wrapped the scarf dramatically around his neck.

"What do you think? Am I _adorable?_"

"You look French."

"You like the French!"

"_You_ don't."

He stomped out to the others, one boot on, the other in his hand. "C'mon, kids! We're going playing outside!"

He waited for a response for a second or two until he opened his eyes and realised that the others had vacated the room.

Ew. He _knew_ it.

"You people have really got to stop running away from me when I'm trying to talk to you!" he yelled.

Hermione meandered into the kitchen with him, and Blaise stuck his head over the railing of the stairs. He was breathing heavily, and Draco _so_ didn't want to know why.

"What did you say?"

"Come play with me!" Draco called up in response.

"_Kind_ of busy right now," Blaise said, and disappeared again. The door slammed, and a giggle cut through the silence before Draco covered his ears and started humming.

Hermione's pointed sigh caught his attention. "Draco," she said slowly, as if talking to a two year old, "would you like _me_ to go and put on some clothes and play with you?"

Rather than make either of the jokes that popped into his head at her last two phrases, he nodded happily and waited for Hermione to hurry her ass up so he could snowball her into oblivion. Bouncing from foot to foot, he stood outside their bedroom door – because it was really _theirs_, now – and called, "Hermione! Hermione! Done yet? How about now?"

She stepped out in the new scarf he had bought for her in Switzerland, looking as if she'd rather be wearing pyjamas.

"It's the jet lag," he informed her knowledgeably. "We can't let it win. We need to re-establish normal sleeping patterns."

"I'm well aware of that, Draco. Come on, didn't you mention snow balls?"

More dirty jokes, more innuendouous comebacks, but really, he just had to throw caution to the wind and hurl snowballs like his life depended on it.

"Gotcha!" he screeched, popping up from behind a pine tree as Hermione blinked snow out of her face.

"Oh, you are going to _pay_ for that, _Malfoy_," she snapped, scraping a pile of white powder together and approaching him rapidly. He would have run like all hell, but there was just something about that little smile that suggested that she wasn't going to _hurt_ him, she just wanted to-

"Oh my _God,_ the cold!" he bellowed as her handful of snow was deposited down the front of his shirt. "You're an _evil_ woman, Hermione Granger."

She daintily tripped away from him, and he zigzagged in typical Draco style to catch up with her. When he did – it was inevitable, with sporting prowess like his – he tackled her around the waist and pulled her down into the snow. She fell on top of him, since he had been gentlemanly enough to provide himself as a pillow to soften her landing.

"You know," he commented, "In retrospect, I'm actually kind of glad they were otherwise occupied."

Hermione resettled her weight on top of him. "Oh yeah? Why's that?"

He looked up at her, and brushed snow out of her hair. "Because if they were here, we couldn't be doing this."

She leant down and applied her lips to his jaw, and mumbled against his skin, "Oh?"

"Yes," he continued, as her lips moved up to his cheek. "And that would be a catastrophe for the masses."

"Uh huh..." she said slowly, her mouth hovering only millimetres from his own.

"And it would be," he fought to continue speaking, "a _disaster_... if we were deprived of such entertainment."

The corners of her lips lifted in a smirk.

"That's it." He couldn't take it any longer. He flipped her onto her back and supported himself by his elbows in the snow so that he didn't crush her, and proceeded to snog the life near out of her, lying there, in the freezing cold snow.

"I agree," she gasped for breath, creating a fog of white steam in front of her mouth, "it would be _tragic._"

"So, two weeks in the snow and you still haven't had enough of me?" he asked, grinning as he left her mouth free to reply to him as he kissed her forehead.

"That's debatable," she began to say seriously, before he started to climb off her. "No, stay!" She took a hold of the collar of his coat and pulled him back down into the snow with her.

It was nice to see he still had the touch.

"I was going to suggest moving inside, out of the cold," he informed her. "The activity doesn't have to change just because the location does."

"I'm fine right here," Hermione said commandingly. Sometimes, it was easy for him to forget that Hermione had once been a bossier, know-it-all-er being than the one he was with now. Sometimes, though, her former personality shone through. She had wrapped her hand around the edge of his scarf and seemed to be using it as a leash to hold him there.

He sighed, defeated. Hermione loved snow; she had grown up in a town that rarely got any. He should have known that he would be subjected to this sort of thing sooner or later. Her internal thermometer seemed to be a bit out of whack, but come to think of it, Draco wasn't really _that _cold either.

"Well, in that case..." He replaced the beret from his own head to hers. "Yeah, I guess we can stay a little longer."

She lay on the snow, with her head on his shoulder. He had to admit, he could think of worse things to be doing right about now. The snow wasn't so bad, and if he smelled right, Quincy was making Christmas cookies.

Lying in the snow, with the crisp cold air all around them, made him think about Hermione's gift for this year. Surprisingly enough, Hermione was difficult to buy presents for, because she was one of the least materialistic people he knew. He had to find something special, unique, that she would _love_, not just like. After all, she'd gotten him a _reindeer_. How was he supposed to beat _that?_

He didn't want to give her any more jewellery; it was too generic and he felt as though he ought to be putting thought into her presents to make them exciting and meaningful. She deserved something special, not just something that any old billionaire could pick up. He was, in a word, stuck.

"Hey," she said suddenly, sitting up and looking at him. Her hair was falling out from under the hat and framing her face. She looked serious.

"Yes...?" he said cautiously, sitting up himself.

"Do you think they're done yet? I'm getting _cold._"

Smiling, he pulled her to her feet. "C'mon. We'll put on some loud music and help Quincy with the cookies, and then think of some sort of reward system. They keep their passion to themselves, they get a cookie."

"Sounds good," she said gratefully, wrapping his arm around her shoulders to keep herself warm as they stumbled towards the house.

Quincy was wearing an apron in the kitchen. It was the first thing that Draco noticed. The second was a fully dressed Blaise, sitting on the counter while Kim – equally dressed – was rummaging in the refrigerator.

"Wow," Draco commented, sliding onto a bar stool. "That was quick."

Blaise glared at him. "Shut your face."

"I mean, I guess they don't call you _Flash_ for nothing."

"_Who_ calls me that?" Blaise growled.

"Oh, come on." Hermione patted his arm. "Play nice, Draco. You'll put an eye out, swinging those things around."

"Charming," he snapped, but calmed down enough to filch a cookie from the steaming stay that Quincy had just waved his wand over. He held it out to Hermione, who sighed and used her wand to direct a hunk of green icing onto the cookie. Smiling sweetly, he said, "Thank you," before biting into it.

"So," Hermione directed towards Kim. "I was thinking we should go shopping tomorrow. Get some Christmas supplies. You know."

"And who doesn't love a new Christmas outfit," added Kim.

"I do, I do!" cried Draco.

"Girls only," Hermione snapped, and turned back to Kim. "When's Ginny getting here?"

"Afternoon. They changed their plans. And Ron's due any minute now."

The doorbell knocked, right on cue. _Perfect_. Draco stumbled over to the door, where Ron was standing there, bruised and red-skinned, looking a tad sheepish.

"Hello, Draco, mate. Is my sister here yet?"

Draco stepped aside so that Hermione could swoop on him. "Oh my _God_, what _happened?_"

"Parvati and I went to Australia. She got a little... violent."

Draco screwed up his face and tried to erase that image from his mind. Nevertheless, he opened the door wider so that Ron could step through it. Joy to the world. Another dysfunctional Christmas, starting _now._ And here, he had thought this one would be _different?_


	15. Tension in the Air

_Chapter 15_

_Tension in the Air_

It took Harry, Ginny and Hermione two and a half hours alone with Ron in the lounge to calm him down. Hermione applied salve to his wounds with her wand, since Lavender seemed to have had enchanted nail polish or something when she had dug her nails into him in the throes of... whatever they had been doing. Ginny and Harry took turns at coaxing the story out of him, Harry with a grin, Ginny with a vaguely disappointed air. From the couch beside Ron, Hermione occasionally threw forth a few disapproving remarks, making her feelings quite clear.

Draco, on the other hand, was occupying Blaise with his impression of Lavender Brown, and they succeeded in whiling away at least an hour by taking the mickey out of the poor girl. Since neither of them were the best at consoling people they didn't particularly like, they had turned their attention to other topics, and gradually slipped back to Ron and Lavender, anyway.

"So," Blaise observed from the armchair outside, an unlit cigar between his lips. "He looked rather... worse for the wear."

"I can never tell the difference," Draco said with a pretentious wave of his hand, "between whether he's come from battle or just a visit to the good old Burrow."

"I heard they have chickens," Blaise agreed with a knowledgeable nod. "Disgraceful."

"Poultry is to be eaten, not kept," Draco added. "What do you think happened?"

"Lavender Brown happened."

Oh, really? Draco hadn't gotten that from Ron's surprise arrival and burst of announcement. He wanted specifics, the juicy details medium rare, dripping with scandal. Already, his longing for a _normal_ life had faded, and he was back, itching for some gossip. Since Harry and Ginny – apart from their December-December romance – had settled into boring lives of respectability, and he knew every specific of Blaise and Kim's relationship, and of course, his and Hermione's, he needed a new face and some new stories to liven up the place.

Kim was, at that moment, hiding from Ron. Last they'd heard of her, she had been bustling around the kitchen, preparing some sort of afternoon treat for the boys. Every party involved was well aware that she just couldn't stand to be around the reason for her break up with Blaise, and Blaise empathised completely. Draco, on the other hand, with his mischievous-but-dashing charm, was eager for some fireworks. Perhaps throwing the three of them together – Blaise and Kim in their romantic bliss, Ron in his abused pain – would be a perfect way to begin the Christmas holiday. For all he knew, the last time the three of them had met was the Christmas before. It seemed that Draco would have to play evil matchmaker once again. Besides, he wanted to show Ron that the damage he had caused had been repaired. That came into a clause in his and Blaise's friendship agreement.

"Kim, darling?" Blaise called inside.

Kim appeared at the door, pulling a beanie over her wavy hair. "You rang?" she said wryly.

It was nice to see that Kim's fiery nature was back. During her break up with Blaise, she had become a bit of a pansy – if you'll pardon the pun. Even shortly afterwards, she had been tentative, unwilling to fully commit to a shaky relationship again. Now, though, she was back, and, in Draco's opinion, better than ever. Her sense of humour had been improved by their time apart, and the constant fighting had sharpened her wit. He was quite pleased with the result, actually, and though he would always be closer to Blaise, he was beginning to understand full well what he saw in her.

Not that he would ever do a Ron. That would be one of his stupidest moves ever. Besides, Ron couldn't get girls, so he had to take Blaise's. Draco had a perfectly adequate one. More than adequate. _Super_adequate. Superfantabulous.

If only she had cooler friends, she'd get another super tacked onto that superfantabulous.

"I was wondering if you'd managed to overhear anything," Blaise asked Kim, summoning her over.

She sat on the seat opposite him, her feet in his lap. "Actually, I've been trying to avoid that room in case _he_ breaks free of them. You know. But I'm sure we'll hear all about it later."

They were sitting outside on the patio, in the cold, yes, but the crisp air was doing wonders for Draco's headache. Besides, he didn't permit cigars in the house. He didn't like the smell, especially so when it seeped into every item in the house. This way, Blaise was free to ingest whichever toxic chemical he chose, and Draco would only get a faint aftertaste of the smoke as it carried away on the breeze.

"What do you think happened? You _do_ know his character fairly well," Draco pointed out.

Yes, okay, he couldn't help but drag it up every now and again. Sometimes, he just couldn't resist.

"Don't we all," Blaise muttered under his breath.

Ignoring Draco's jab and Blaise's reply, Kim said thoughtfully, "I don't know... don't expect _me_ to understand to twisted workings of Ron Weasley's brain."

"Perhaps she just got a little rough," Draco suggested, the obvious answer.

"Or he did something to annoy her and she did what many women will thank her for?" said Kim, a vicious frown coming onto her innocent face.

"What, kick him to the curb with only a few bleeding scratch marks to show for it?"

"Give or take a few bruises and a broken heart, yeah, something like that."

"Ice, ice, baby," Draco commented from his seat, propping his feet up on the frosty table. Gesturing to the ice around them, he added, "An accordingly named phrase."

"Well, I can't help it. Ron Weasley is Satan's spawn to me now, and _forever_ will he remain it." She added the final part with a triumphant glance at Blaise, who reached over and patted her shoulder.

With a slight snort, Draco climbed to his feet. "Okay, I'm going on a snack hunt. Anything for you two?"

"Just privacy," said Blaise, winking at him as Kim slowly shifted her weight onto his lap.

"Enough said," he muttered, closing the doors firmly behind him and venturing into the kitchen. It still smelled of the bewitching baking smell that always seemed to haunt the ovens at Christmas time, even if no baking had actually gone on there. Today, however, there were the remnants of a tray of Christmas cookies to show, so the scent had foundation.

Sitting on a bar stool, he summoned a glass of milk to drown his boredom in. He needed to think about finding Hermione's perfect Christmas present, while she wasn't there to distract him with her _infinite_ wit and charm. His brain required silence to process and produce original thoughts, or else it just began to regurgitate whatever unfiltered crap it spouted on a regular basis. See, when he was _alone_, he could really be quite intelligent. It was in company that his personality displayed the disjointed, slightly insane part.

How could he _possibly_ one-up a _reindeer?_ With bells on his fingers and rings on his toes? No, really. He commanded his brain to concentrate, and summoned over a Christmas cake to help it on its way. A unicorn? No, that would be copying her gift, and Hermione had never been a horse-y sort of person. Books? No, he bought her those regularly. This had to be something fantastic, something thoughtful. He supposed that it was right for him to put effort into it. The end product would inevitably be so much better.

Unless, of course, he couldn't think of anything and she wound up receiving a pair of socks. Also a possibility.

"Draco!"

Hermione hurried out into the kitchen just as he was digging his fork into the cake. She dashed to the refrigerator, and then to the pantry, all around the kitchen, collecting items as she went.

"Something the matter, dear?" he asked, inclining one eyebrow as he spat a raisin into the sink.

"That's a whole cake," she observed, pausing momentarily at the counter to dump the armful of objects she had accumulated on her hurricane trip through his kitchen. He caught a glimpse of vegetables, juice, something twisted, red and Vine-y, a carafe of water, and assorted baked goods that he heard cured even the most agonising of hangovers, before she swept the lot into the basket she had rummaged for in the cupboard.

"And that's the entire contents of my kitchen," he countered, pointing to the basket. "Anything you need to tell me?"

Ron hadn't _seemed_ off his face when he had stumbled in... although come to think of it, the scent of whiskey rolling off him in waves _might_ have accounted for what Draco had assumed was simply startled Weasley clumsiness. Funny, how his brain refused to do such simple math over the holidays.

"Where are my snacks?!" came Blaise's _manly_ bellow-turned-shriek from outside. "_Kimberley, _that's bloody freezing!"

"_Sorry_," came her innocent little voice, barely audible amidst Blaise's high-pitched yells of agony.

He redirected his attention to his girlfriend, who had been taking advantage of Blaise's distraction and was in the process of slinking out of the kitchen, basket in the crook of his elbow.

"Hermione!"

He followed her out of the kitchen as she trotted down the corridor. She froze, and turned around, face like a deer caught in headlights. A wince on her face like she knew she'd been caught, she confessed, "Ron _may_ have vomited on your couch."

"Ew, but okay. My next question was _going_ to be something about _why_ you have every known hangover cure to man in that basket, but I think I can guess the answer to that one."

"That's because you're intelligent," she said with a sweet smile as she whipped out her wand and stirred the vegetables together in the air. She was buttering him up and distracting him at the same time, he knew, and usually he would have given in to the flattery and rolled with it, but he couldn't help but let the ball of combining vegetables in the air catch his eye. Her wand was emitting a slight keening sound, like that of a blender on high, and he could not _for the life of him_ decipher what, or _how_, she was doing.

"Okay," he managed to say as she tipped the substance into a glass from the kitchen and tucked it into the basket. "So, _why_ have you three had him in there for so long? What are you doing, getting the juicy details? If so, _why_ are we not invited?"

"Not just the details," she said softly, hand on the closed door to his living room. "No matter what stupid things he's done, he _is_ our friend, and Ginny's brother. We have to be there for him, and Lavender's put him through some stuff..."

"Okay, okay," he said, holding up his hands in protest. "I _don't_ need to know the details of _what she's put him through._ Really, though, it was about time the boy got laid. Let me know when you're done with him. We can think about dinner, yes?"

She seemed quite grateful to this new understanding facet to his personality. All part of his evil plan, he assured the evil rest of his personality, closing the door gently behind her. He retreated to the kitchen, grabbed the remainder of his cake, and headed for the stairs above the lounge room. Several times throughout his childhood, he had become aware of the fact that the ceiling of the living room was _remarkably_ thin in some places, such as the air vents. It seemed about time to be a little sentimental, and revisit the sight of so many illustrious childhood eavesdropping sessions.

He sat on the stairs, his back against the wall and the plate of cake on his lap. His fork was halfway to his mouth, and he was trying to decipher a string of random conversation, when he caught a snippet that intrigued him.

"I think I've screwed everything up," Ron was saying.

"We've all done stupid things, Ron," Harry reminded him.

Ron sounded defiant. "I messed up things for Blaise and Kim... they both hate me."

It was Hermione's response that surprised him.

"Every one of us has done something to jeopardise relationships, Ron, whether it be ours or someone else's. God knows I have."

_What_ had Hermione done to mess up _their_ relationship? Nothing _he_ was aware of, apart from being awfully smart, far too much smarter than him, which was difficult for him to digest occasionally. And if he wasn't aware of it, that meant she had kept it a secret from him, and probably lied to him in the process. As far as _he_ was concerned, there were no lies in their relationship. Sure, Draco might not tell her when he ordered two desserts out to dinner with Blaise, and she might not keep him perfectly up to date on the goings on with her too-handsome new partner at the Ministry, but they didn't keep anything big from one another. Apparently, that arrangement had been one-sided.

He strained his ears to hear the rest of the conversation, but they had moved, leaving nothing but an incomprehensible murmur of voices, and a sick feeling in his stomach. He didn't move up the staircase to hear him better. He needed to think about this, to scan back the last _three years_ and see if he could think of _any_ time that Hermione had seemed distant or furtive. He needed to get to the bottom of this, preferably without Hermione's influence. The fact that she herself had admitted to someone else that she had done something to sabotage the relationship had made him kind of averse to seeing her at the moment.

He was still sitting on those stairs, cake forgotten on his lap and the fork a few steps down where it had fallen from his limp hand, when the four of them below emerged. Harry was the only one who looked up to see Draco sitting slumped against the wall. He tilted his head on an angle with a questioning look on his face, but Draco only sighed. Ginny glanced at him.

"What's the matter?"

Harry looked at her, trying not to direct attention to Draco, who was distinctly grateful not to have the presence of the female Weasley thrown into the little 'Breakfast Club' moment he felt was about to occu. "Nothing. Nothing at all."

Hermione was helping Ron. She looked so innocent, with his arm around her neck as she turned her face to whisper something consolatory in his ear. Just from looking at her, nobody would know that she was in a happy relationship that she apparently didn't find so happy after all, if she felt the need to go screw it up and then _lie_ about it.

Oh, God. The word 'screw' brought the whirring calculations of his brain to a sickening halt. Had Hermione _cheated_ on him?

His head spun with disturbing thoughts like a washing machine on spin cycle. He didn't even notice when the others continued into the kitchen, and Harry remained behind.

"Hey." The raven-haired figure a few steps below him startled him out of his disgusted reverie. "Something wrong?"

"What did Hermione do?" he asked without raising his head. "To 'jeopardise our relationship'?"

Harry faltered for a second. He hadn't realised that Draco had been listening, obvious enough from the way he jumped. Draco opened his mouth to repeat the question, but Harry interrupted, "You heard that, huh?"

"Yep."

He obviously didn't want to rat out his friend, but really, how could he resist the impenetrable icy gaze of Draco Malfoy? Truth was, he couldn't, so he really had no choice but to open his mouth and flounder around in a false explanation.

Draco didn't fall for it. "Potter. Seriously."

Sometimes, he hated his father, for the attributes he had bequeathed to him. The looks were the only plus, perhaps. The cold blood, the icy stare... all things that he wasn't exactly proud of. However, in times like these, that icy stare could come in very handy.

The roles were quickly reversed. His eyes were the hammer, and Harry was the ice. He splintered and cracked in a matter of seconds. His mouth opened, and Draco anticipated the juicy secrets that were about to spill out.

"You should really talk to Hermione," Harry said, slamming shut his lips, the gate to Draco's knowledge.

Wow. It must have been something _really_ bad, for Harry to send him off to have it out with Hermione.

"Thanks for all your help," he said sarcastically, jumping to his feet and leaving Harry to take care of the empty cake plate. The fork, he stuck in his pocket, in case he needed it later.

Hermione was sitting in the kitchen, on the very stool he had vacated, fiddling with a fork that hovering over a plate of cake.

He paused in formulating his speech to wonder _how_ there were so many Christmas goodies in his house. There never had been up until his friends starting coming for Christmas, and it had never occurred to him that therein laid the reason for the constant influx of baked goods.

"Hey." She spoke without turning around. They had grown so accustomed to one another that they didn't have to look to know the other had entered the room. To think, this transition had happened throughout their entire relationship, while Hermione had consistently lied to him. Super.

She didn't invite him to sit down, she didn't say anything else. When he stayed in the doorway, though, she turned around. It took one glance at his face for her to realise. She turned back around to her pudding, and waited.

It amazed him how perceptive she was. Up until then, it had been one of the things he loved most about her. He wandered over to the stool beside her, and she pushed the cake towards him. Taking the fork from his pocket, he stuck it into the cake. Without looking across at him, without any change in her body language, she set down the fork on the counter and said, "You heard us speaking."

"Yup."

"You heard what I said."

"Again, yup."

"And you're upset."

"Wow, Sherlock. You're blowin' my mind today."

It was a good thing she was used to his one-liners when he was annoyed, because any other girl would have shoved the fork into his hand. She did, for his benefit, shoot him an irritated look, before she commenced with her explanation. She had explanation face on and everything, but to his surprise, she didn't try to justify herself. She just nodded.

"Are you going to fill me in on the exact parameters of this mistake of yours?" he asked finally, more than a tad agitated at her silence.

"Oh, I thought you heard," she said calmly. "After all, you seem to making out that you know everything."

Again, frustrated, he hurried her along. "Come on, Hermione, I'm bloody well _dying_ here."

"You're not, but you will be if you don't let me gather my thoughts." She swallowed, and swung her stool to face him. Looking him straight in the eye, she told him, "I spent the night at Dean Thomas' house, that night we fought about my parents."

He remembered the night distinctly. Well, he remembered the part of the night before he'd gotten blinding drunk, after Hermione had stormed out. He remembered waking up the next day with a terrible hangover, and pacing for hours until Hermione had quietly let herself in and they had sorted out their differences. How had that night escaped his memory when he had been trying to think of instances during which Hermione might have betrayed him?

So, this was it. She had slept with Dean Thomas. She _had_ cheated on him, as he had feared.

Without a word, he stood up, and dropped the fork.

"Then I'm done."

* * *

_Sorry to end the chapter on such a dramatic note, folks. Just felt that our lovely lovebirds needed a little drama. Hope you enjoyed. _


	16. Breaking Up, Making Up

_Chapter 16_

_Breaking up, Making up_

Hermione had waited about... oh, three seconds, before she had wrenched open the door and followed after him.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" she demanded, just as he made a break for his bedroom.

He had about two seconds to formulate a plan. Did he act pissed off and petulant, or mature and adult so she saw what she was missing out on? Or, option number three, let her explain to him.

In a moment of absurd weakness, he decided to go with option two. Petulance would annoy her, and if he just let her explain – as if she could _explain away_ an affair with _Dean Thomas_ – he wouldn't be a man. So, he would be mature. He would be calm. He would be-

His bedroom door slammed open, cracking against the wall with a sound like gunfire. She didn't look angry or annoyed, just walked in and sat on his bed.

"Hermione," he said wearily, turning to face her. "I don't want to hear it."

"Hear _what?_" she asked. "What do you think I'm going to say?"

"Oh, I don't know... 'sorry, it was a moment of weakness, it only happened once'?" He raised an eyebrow at her, _daring_ her to come up with something different.

It seemed as though she hadn't been intending to say that at all, but upon his words, she folded her arms. "Well, since you seem to know everything, I may as well not bother."

"Yeah. You really shouldn't."

She turned to leave – _thank God,_ he couldn't help thinking, because her being here and surrounding him with the thought that she had _cheated _on him, and they had been together almost a _year_ after it had happened and he'd never noticed a thing, and _how_ on _earth_ could she have done something like this to him? – but paused at the doorway.

He was going to miss her, a lot. It had been a fun _three years _of his life.

"Draco," she said slowly, cracking open the door.

What was this? Was she going to apologise? Was she going to say goodbye?

"I did _not_ sleep with Dean Thomas. I haven't slept with anyone but you. Frankly, the fact that you jumped to that conclusion makes me sick to my stomach."

She slammed the door shut after her, and it seemed as though she had managed to keep her calm persona for the length of the corridor. Her voice rose and fell, from frantic to furious. He _hoped_ that someone was in there with her, or else his girlfriend was just insane.

So, what did this mean? Hermione had not cheated on him. She hadn't slept with anyone else.

Then _why_ the hell had she said she'd 'spent the night' at Dean Thomas' house, and _how _on _earth_ had that jeopardised their relationship, if she'd done nothing?

Throwing the shoe he'd been tying back onto the bed, he raced down the corridor to the room that Hermione had domineered, one of the many spare bedrooms.

"Hermione." He pounded on the door. "Look, I want to-"

It opened a crack, and Kim stuck her head out.

"Hi, Draco," she said, her voice low and her tone disapproving.

"Is Hermione in there?" he asked, just to be polite. He was _fairly_ sure he had the right room, but he didn't want to walk in on Kim and Blaise doing the nasty. Just to check, then.

"Kim, I can't-" he heard Hermione say faintly from inside the room. "I don't want to see-"

"I know," Kim said, facing inside the room. Apparently, such an answer satisfied Hermione, because Kim turned back to Draco without interruption. Only a sliver of her body was visible through the miniscule crack that the door had opened too, but he could see that her arms were crossed and her shoe was preventing the door from opening any further. "Yeah, she's here."

"Can you..." He knew that trying to talk to Hermione via Kim wouldn't work, and that barging into the room would do him no favours with either girl, so he softened the look on his face that seemed to be irritating Kim, and beckoned her outside.

A soft voice from inside the room startled him. Ginny was comforting Hermione. He hadn't realised that the entire trio of girls had gotten together so quickly, but it meant that at least one of them could come and talk to him without worrying about leaving Hermione alone. Kim glanced back into the room, and he heard Ginny say clearly, "I'll go. Stay here, would you?"

Her red hair was the first thing to appear, and she quickly stepped through the door and closed it behind her. Leaning against the wall with her arms folded and a fiery glint in her eye, she demanded, "Okay, Draco... we've had our differences in the past, but we've overcome that. However, I still maintain that if you cross me or one of my friends, I will Bat Bogey Hex you to within an inch of your life. Now, what the hell did you do to 'Mione?"

"Whoa." He took a step back, and ran his fingers through his hair. "I just... really need to talk to her, Ginny. Please."

She shook her head. "No. Tell me what happened."

He wasn't going to get into the room without obeying the little Weasley-head, so he explained as briefly as he could. "I overheard your conversation with your _brother_, and heard something about her screwing up our relationship. After, I asked her, and she said she'd spent the night with Dean Thomas. I jumped to the wrong conclusion, apparently, and she got upset."

"Hmm. Okay." She nodded to herself, as if he had proved her right. Her fingers clenched, and she stood on her tiptoes to growl in his ear, surprising him with her tone, "You had really better run, Malfoy, because if you make Hermione cry again, you are dead meat walking."

"Jesus!" He stepped away from her, effectively freeing her fingers from where they had seized the neck of his shirt. It took him a moment to digest her words, and he softened. Melted, really. Liquefied into a steaming puddle of crap-feeling, guilty, marshmallow-soft Draco. "She's... crying?"

Well, damn you, Draco, damn you. Sometimes, he hated himself with a passion unmatched by any other.

He decided to bypass Ginny and go straight to the source. "Hermione?" He knocked on the door, lightly this time, with two knuckles rather than his entire evil fist. "Hermione, I really need to talk to you, without your minions stopping me or passing messages. I just want to... talk."

The door swung open. Hermione was on the bed, red eyed, and Kim had an expression on her face that rivalled that of the time that Blaise and Draco had eaten her cookies. Her hand was tight on the door, turning white with the strength of her grip.

"Draco," she said, loudly and firm enough to him to want to run away. "She doesn't want to see you. _Get the fuck away._"

Hearing a swearword come from sweet little Kim's mouth shocked him into realising the reality of the situation. Hermione was really very upset, and her friends were willing to fight to the death to protect her. His relationship with her... well, it didn't seem to exist anymore. He was determined to change that.

Ginny slunk under his arm and joined Kim in the doorway, looking ferocious as she helped her to block the space.

"Okay," he said finally, after a minute long stare-off against the two girls. "I'll go. Just..." He had intended to call out to Hermione, to tell her how sorry he was, but really, what was the point? She would hate him regardless.

It was time for him to do something he'd never done before. He was going to put the stubborn, obstinate part of him to rest, and he was going to back off. Hermione needed time, and, contrary to popular belief, he had the ability to give it to her.

It, as in time. But the other thing, too.

He curled up on the stairs above the lounge room, just as he had been only hours before. With his head in his hands and his heart firmly underfoot, he closed his eyes and tried to brainstorm. After an agonising half hour, he fell asleep.

A foot slammed into his side.

"Draco. Come on."

He blearily stumbled after the footsteps, down the corridor. His initial hope that Hermione had finally agreed to see him – despite the strangely baritone voice that had awoken him, rather than Ginny or Kim's more feminine timbres – was crushed as soon as he saw the door still firmly closed.

He had only taken a few steps down the corridor when a hand yanked him into another bedroom. He recognised the grip as Blaise's, and the face that soon appeared to him was sympathetic.

"What are you going to do?" asked Harry, who was perched on the bottom bunk, looking at him intently.

"Curl up and die, I'd advise," was Ron's sound advice from where he was lounging on the top bunk, his long legs dangling down.

"Hate to say it, Draco, but I agree with Ronald. Inspiring the fury of _all_ three Gorgons? Not cool," Blaise said, flashing Harry a smile.

Draco glared at them all. "Can't you see that I'm rather depressed at the loss of the girl I love?"

"We can, and we're ignoring," chortled Ron from his perch. "Maybe not Harry, he's got glasses." Snickering like a three year old, Ron rolled around, clutching his stomach. "Gosh I'm hilarious!" he panted with laughter before rolling off the bed.

Stepping over Ron's prostrate, groaning body to join Blaise on the sofa, Draco said, "I need to get her back. Thoughts?"

"Apologise?" suggested Harry.

"With flowers," added Blaise. "Sure fire knicker dropper."

"Chocolates..." mumbled Ron from the floor. "It's what I give my mum when I piss her off."

Three pairs of eyes shot to him, looking incredulous, and then recommenced ignoring him. Ron was one of those people who provided temporary amusement every now and again, when they ran into doors or tried to down an entire cup of maraschino cherries, but were better left alone and friendless.

"I need to be able to _see_ her first," Draco mused, leaning back to glare at the ceiling. "However, the harpies are blocking the door, wands at the ready."

"Oh, _we_ can take care of them for you," Blaise said dismissively, waving one hand and straightening his tie with the other.

Draco sat up abruptly. "_How?_"

Harry and Blaise exchanged a knowing look, and both rolled their eyes. From nowhere, or so it seemed, Harry pulled out a bottle of red wine, and Blaise used his wand to charm out the cork. He led the way out to the lounge room, and while Harry picked four wine glasses out of the air, Blaise shot small balls of fire at the candles around the room. Within seconds, they had created a room with ambience and a distinct smell of cooking chicken that was sure to lure the girls away.

On his way past the bedroom, Draco saw that Ron was still huddled on the floor. "I'm okay," he seemed to be muttering to himself, trying to climb to his feet. Giving up and collapsing on the carpet again, he reiterated, "Yep. I'm okay."

Ginny and Kim jumped up to guard the cracked door as soon as they saw Draco approaching.

"Calm down," he said wearily. "I've just been sent to tell you that your boyfriends are cooking for you and request your presence."

Kim sniffed the air. Ginny squinted at the soft light coming from the lounge at the end of the corridor.

"Hermione, you'll be right, won't you? We can get Ron in here to look after you, if you like."

"I'm not _three_," Hermione protested, standing up and moving closer to the fire crackling in the fireplace. She faced away from the door, so Draco didn't think she would notice when he happened to creep in through the open, now abandoned door.

Minutes past, flicking past faster than he realised. It was time consuming to stand there, watching her turned back and waiting for the idea to come to him, the perfect thing to say that would fix this all and put them right.

It still hadn't come when Hermione spoke.

"Draco," she said, and he was surprised at the resigned tone her voice had taken on. "I don't want to deal with you."

"Okay," he said quickly, closing the door before she could send him out it in clearer terms. "Will you listen to me, then? I promise, no dealing. Just... talking."

The room was lit with the orange glow of the fireplace, and the light made her face look particularly malicious when she spun around, annoyed, and snapped, "Dealing with you and talking to you always equates to the same thing, you moron."

"Okay, okay." He backed away slowly, and sat down on the bed. Remembering Blaise's advice, he conjured a bouquet from his sleeve with his wand. Hermione's face froze for a millisecond, at the hopeful look on his, before she used her own wand and sent the flowers into the fire without a second glance.

"Hermione," he tried to begin, "I'm sorry for jumping to conclusions about you and Dean. It was just... you know I'm not really a trusting person? With a family like mine, trust doesn't come naturally. You were... you _are_ the only person I've automatically trusted, Hermione. Do you remember, back in school, when we started talking, realising what we had in common? I trusted you immediately, even then. You know I trust you now, 'Mione, it's just _him..._ the thought of any guy being around you, vulnerable, and _refraining_... well, it's foreign to me, because I'm an asshole, and _I_ wouldn't. I know I jump to conclusions, but Hermione, you've got to remember it isn't you. I trust you _completely._ You're the only one I've ever let see me cry watching _A Walk to Remember_, you're the only one I've ever told about my childhood... it was a stupid reaction, I know, but I can't help doing stupid things. Hermione Granger, I'm in love with you, and I know you would never do anything to ruin this, because what we've got going is the best thing I've ever experienced. At least, I hope it is, present tense. I don't want you to become past tense, Hermione. Please. Can you forgive me, and can we forget that this horrible day ever happened?"

It took him a moment to convince his mind that the verbal diarrhoea should probably stop there, and it took _her_ a moment to process and unravel the jumbled mix of crazy he had just spouted at her.

When she did, though, her response was simple. "Draco Malfoy, you're an asshole."

Oh, thank Merlin. Her tone had changed from 'die, Malfoy, die' to 'I'm frustrated but dealing'.

"I know I am," he encouraged, inching closer to her.

"You _suck_."

"I know I do," he agreed, more relieved than he ever had been before.

He stretched out his hand, hopefully unnoticeably. She was facing the fire again, and his hand inched closer and closer, second after second. When his fingertips grazed the wool of her sweater, she started slightly. She didn't move away, and he took that as a sign to continue. He placed his hand on her arm, and the contact between the body he had been missing for hours set his palm alive with warmth. She was so familiar to him, every inch of her, that feeling the curve of his hand fit into the shape of her upper arm felt like coming home.

Seconds passed. Seconds turned to minutes, long, unbearably pleasant minutes.

Her hand crept up to rest on top of his. He didn't start at the contact, but merely revelled in it.

Moments later, her fingers slid underneath his. He tightened his grip.

They readjusted. His other hand found its way to her other shoulder, and he slowly spun her around to face him. The look on her face reminded him of why he went to such effort to win her back. Their fingers intertwined as their eyes connected. Her brown, his ice blue. He didn't know how he had managed to screw it up, but he knew, looking at her like that, illuminated by the firelight, that he never would again.

Her eyes slid closed as he moved closer. Their bodies were flush against each other's, and he pressed his lips to her forehead. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she turned up her face. Before he kissed her, he asked softly, "Are we-?"

"Always," she whispered, before she stood on her toes and reached up to kiss him.

* * *

AN: Sorry for the soppy/melodramaticness. I was listening to my playlist entitled 'Soppy/Melodramatic'. Never again!


	17. Fighting Back

_Chapter 17_

_Fighting Back_

Draco and Hermione emerged from the room several hours later. The other four – because Ron was still curled up on the floor of one of the bedrooms – were finishing up their meal in the lounge room. Soft music led them to the location of the others, coming from a moving speaker that floated around the room. The fire was crackling, empty plates scattered the coffee tables, and the two couples were sprawled out on sofas.

Taking Hermione by the hand and leading her into the room, Draco observed the serene expressions on the faces of the girls who, only hours before, had been threatening his life and his manhood. Such a difference a few bottles of wine could make.

Blaise and Kim were on one sofa, with her practically on top of him as they looked at each other all gooey-eyed and nauseating. Harry and Ginny, on the other side, were sitting on the other side of the room. Ginny was curled into the curve of Harry's body, looking up at him. They were having a quiet conversation, under their breaths, which occasionally paused to afford them both the opportunity to glance slyly over at the other two.

Hermione sat by the fire, poking at the embers with a poker. Draco sat behind her, mulling. It occurred to him, in a flash of ingenuity that couldn't have come at a more inopportune time, that Hermione still hadn't revealed the 'screw up' that her running to Dean Thomas and _not_ sleeping with him had done to their relationship.

Don't get him wrong. Hermione forgiving him for his overreaction was a blessing, but all of a sudden, in a moment of pure indignity, he wanted to know what _she _had done. The way his brain worked astounded him, and he was almost sickened to the point of vomiting at his own idiocy, but he _needed to know_. Nobody could ask him to interpret the inner workings of his own deranged mind, but they were there, and they were certainly working. It repulsed him that the shortest time had passed since he and Hermione had made up, and his stupid mind already wanted to ruin the happy time they had regained by barging in and demanding an explanation. However, that repulsion was not going to stop him from doing it.

"Hermione..." he began softly.

Blaise's eyes shot to him, soon followed by Kim's suspicious ones. Harry and Ginny were still deeply immersed in their conversation, so they didn't seem to notice. Blaise, however, had slowly raised his hand up against his throat, and made slashing movements, shaking his head violently.

Frowning at Blaise, he asked again, "Hermione?"

"Mmm?" She turned around to look at him. The expression on her face – softly lit by the firelight, looking as if she was rather pleased to see him – put him off for a moment,

Only a moment.

Cursing himself and his paranoia in his head as the words came out of his mouth, he asked, "Can we... go somewhere and... talk?"

Hermione raised one of her eyebrows. "Talk? You just want to go make out, don't you?"

"Yes, but no."

She turned her body completely so that she was looking at him properly. "Wow. Something's really wrong, isn't it?"

"Wrong?" he denied it. "No, of course not. I just... thought we could talk. Away from the _eavesdroppers._"

He shot a dirty look at Blaise, who was leaning over the couch to hear their conversation better. Seeing the look on his face, Kim dragged Blaise back, as Draco stood up and helped Hermione to her feet. He led her into a room that would be well out of earshot of the others. He didn't want to be overheard if this got ugly, though he prayed to God it wouldn't.

"What's wrong?" Hermione asked before he'd even closed the door, looking at his face and frowning.

Most of the time, her acute perception and her skill at reading people came in handy. He often found it to be one of her more endearing qualities. At this point in time, though, when he wanted to repress all emotion and only ask the basic questions, he wanted to set that skill of hers alight and throw it off a big, tall cliff.

"Nothing's... _wrong_, per se."

She glanced at the bed behind her, and asked wryly, "Am I going to need to sit down for this?"

He could tell that she seemed almost disbelieving that he was bringing something unpleasant up, within hours of their reunion.

_As if it's a sacred time_, he thought to himself, _that ought to be given distance and respect and celebrated with fireworks and party poppers._

That evil, sludging creature within him that made bad decisions or ruined happy times was springing into life in his chest. He had managed to control it, after its rampant terrorisation throughout his schooling career, but now, it seemed to be rearing its ugly head again, as much as it pained him for anything relating to him to be _ugly._

Mildly unattractive, then. It was rearing its mildly unattractive head and threatening to re-ruin everything that he had just managed to piece back together.

"I was just wondering... well, I just realised that I don't actually understand what happened with you and Dean Thomas. I mean," he added hastily, before she could jump to conclusions about the reason for his questioning, "I believe you, you didn't sleep with him... I was just wondering... what _did_ happen, to threaten our relationship? I just figure that, since our relationship is all about honesty and such... I ought to know."

Hermione blinked. Twice.

She inhaled. Three times. Thrice, he supposed, but saying 'thrice' made him feel like a pompous jackass.

"I told you nothing happened."

As if that was an explanation, fit to answer his question.

"And I believe you," he confirmed quickly. "I just... don't understand how that could have ruined our relationship."

"Well, you ran off before I could finish, didn't you?" she snapped.

It seemed as though, with his growing annoyance at Hermione's guardedness, her annoyance at his _asking_ grew as well, probably at a greater speed. This occurrence was strange for them... throughout their three year relationship, he rarely got annoyed with her. Sure, if she wanted to watch some idiotic television show rather than make out, he would be frustrated. Sure, if she defended her friend even when _his_ had the more valid argument, he got irritated. But this? This was new.

As he paced around the room, with Hermione's flashing eyes _daring_ him to rebuke her, he tried to count all of the times that _she_ got well and truly annoyed with him. More than he could count on his fingers, that was for sure, and even when he threw in his toes and her toes and fingers, he could still name countless occasions on which she had taken the upper hand, and found it suited her to be angry until he came back to her.

The more he thought about it, the more right he seemed. _He_ was almost always the one who begged forgiveness. And, when he gave it a little more thought, he felt as though _he_ was in the right. How was he expected to react when Hermione came out with, 'oh yeah, I _spent the night_ at Dean Thomas' house'? 'Oh, I bet they played a good game of Uno'?

"Hermione," he said firmly, feeling the old Draco come out to play, the headstrong one who _always_ got what he wanted. "_What happened?_"

Ever since his transition to the Not-Dark Side, Hermione had taken the upper hand in their relationship. He had been too busy trying to carve out a path in life that didn't involve being brutally murdered by his father's Death Eaters, trying to _attempt_ to become a better person. It had, therefore, made sense in his head that Hermione often took the reins. Now, though, he was much better. He didn't laugh at old people, he only rarely kicked kittens, and the last time he'd stolen candy from a baby would have been,.. oh, gee, _months_ ago. He knew what he was doing, and he realised rather suddenly that he was tired of being trodden underfoot. He was sick of tiptoeing carefully around, afraid of hurting anyone's feelings or disturbing their plans. Well, he wasn't going to sacrifice his own peace of mind so that Hermione could keep her secret. He _wanted to know. _

She looked stunned, as if she had never suspected that one of these days, he would decide that he wanted to be able to talk to her frankly without being afraid of being hit. For a moment, the briefest space of time, her index finger trembled, and then she buried her face in her hands. "I got drunk and kissed _Neville!_" she admitted, the tone of her voice skyrocketing to a painfully high soprano as she quivered.

Was she... was Hermione _afraid _of him? Or was she shaking with disgust at what she'd done?

For some reason, her indiscretion made him want to _laugh_ rather than made him angry. If it had been Michael Corner, or Zacharias Smith, or any of those other ponces she had kept in touch with, he would have been angry. The fact that it was Neville Longbottom? Well, that made it a little more okay.

She wrenched her head out of the pillow and looked at him. "Why are you _laughing?_"

"Well, I understand why you didn't want to tell me... _Longbottom?_"

Why was she making out as if he was _insane_ for finding out that his girlfriend had kissed Neville Longbottom and laughing? What other reaction was there, when Neville Longbottom was involved?"

"You're not... mad?"

He considered for a moment. _Was_ he? Well, not really.

"Well, you were drunk. It's not like you're the only one who's done idiotic things while drunk."

It was true, the only emotion he felt at that point was humour at the hilarity of the event... Of course, he wasn't too cheery on the fact that someone else's tongue had been in her mouth, but he was _fairly_ sure that during their seventeen-hour-long marriage, Blaise and he had exchanged a kiss or two as well. She had been _fairly_ cool about that, and so, he would be about this.

He felt good about this. He had exerted a little bit of pigheadedness, and now Hermione and he had no secrets between them. Of course, he couldn't help being a little bit irritated at the fact that _Hermione_ was the one who got in a huff, when _she_ was the one who'd gone and made out with Neville Longbottom...

Okay, he couldn't stay mad for long, because he was busy laughing his ass off. _Neville Longbottom?_ Oh, poor Hermione.

"Are you sure you're okay, Draco?" Hermione asked in a small voice from the corner.

He glanced over at her. She _did_ seem intimidated, but he had made a vow to become more assertive. It was difficult, being a doormat, and he preferred for there to be equality in their relationship. As a matter of fact, wasn't this kind of mature of him?

"I'm fine," he reassured her, nodding his head to beckon her towards him. She collapsed onto the bed beside him, fitting into the gap that his beckoning arm made. Cradling her shoulders, he realised, with a sudden start, that Hermione's Christmas present had been under his nose the entire time.

Yep. It was all going to work out fine.


	18. Present Wars

_Chapter 18_

_Present Wars_

Christmas morning. The day they'd all been waiting for.

Draco sat up with a smile on his face, and gave a half-hearted yawn. He couldn't really be bothered converting it into a complete, proper whammy of a yawn – for Hermione's sake, see, to inform her that now was up time – because he was _hungry_, and he smelt _bacon._ He tossed aside the covers, with little to no concern for the body beside him that might soon become a little chilly, and jumped onto the carpet.

Seeing one of Hermione's feet twitch, he went over and nudged her arm. "'Mione, 'Mione, up! It's Christmas!"

"M'kay." She rolled over onto her face, using the pillow to keep out his insistent voice. Now, if today hadn't been a universally happy day for one and all, he _might_ have been a little offended that she didn't want to spend her time listening to his dulcet tones, but he was determined to make this day enjoyable, whether people liked it or not.

And yes, he _would_ use force.

"Up, please!" he said, fighting hard to play cheerful. When Hermione didn't move, he tried a different approach, kneeling on the bed beside her and hovering over her ear.

"Hermione?"

"Yes?" she mumbled.

"Do you need me to carry you downstairs?"

She sat up, and rubbed her eyes blearily. Wrapping a duvet around her and stuffing her oddly-purple feet into a pair of thick knitted socks, she held up her arms like a child. Draco was surprised - and also a little frightened; she would _kill_ him if he dropped her - but accepted her reaching out - both literally and figuratively - as a peace sign. He scooped her over his shoulder, evoking her shrieks of terror and probably stomach pain as he strolled down the hallway.

Blaise was coming from the bathroom, shirt abandoned and towel draped over one shoulder.

"Merry Christmas, Blaise!" he said cheerfully.

"Merry Christmas," Blaise returned, eyeing Hermione's now-limp-because-she-had-seen-that-complaining-got-her-absolutely-nowhere form as he edged past Draco. When Draco realised that he hadn't been wearing pants, and looked back in horror, the towel was now around his waist, and all he could see was a plume of blue, sweet smoke, rising above Blaise's dark hair.

The sitting room was artfully decorated in typically Draco-ish festive-deco, full of glitter - red and green, and blue and purple, because he wasn't one to discriminate - and streamers and unfortunately shaped balloons and hanging angels and a large sign, Spellotaped to the wall, that read 'Hermione? Walk outside.'

He had, for art's sake, scribbled on a paltry Christmas trees and something that could have been a baby Jesus but was more likely a trumpet, and coloured it with red and green crayon. The result had been intended to look heartfelt-ly homemade, but really, it wasn't _his_ fault that he'd never been taught to colour within the lines. As a child, his only colouring rule had been... Okay, well, _that_ was probably why he had spent his entire childhood up to age twelve or so, colouring the shit out of walls, himself, and the cat they'd had for a few weeks.

Dear old Snuggles. Narcissa had been allergic, Lucius had tripped. Snuggles had had to go.

It had been for the best, really. If Draco hadn't of taken matters into his own hands, the cat would have been burnt alive or used as a dartboard.

Hermione didn't notice the bed sheet sized strip of butcher's paper for a fair few minutes. It was only when he sat down beside her and passed her a cup of tea with a saucer - similarly decorated in Christmas shades, but to his credit, about a decade and a half ago - that she perked up enough to become one of the living.

"Feeling a little better?" he asked sympathetically, as if she had been recovering from a hiccupping fit or a case of pneumonia rather than anti-Christmas lethargy.

"Is that supposed to be a _snowman_?" Hermione countered, tipping the saucer to study his artwork.

Rather offended - what sort of a half-wit couldn't tell a snowman from a reindeer? - he replied, "No, it isn't, actually."

Without commenting further, Hermione placed her saucer and empty cup on the coffee table, which had been decorated with a fountain of metallic red and green strips - not unlike those bundles of crinkled fluff that scantily clad girls cheered with at Quidditch games - sticking out of a Santa vase, and sprinkled with tiny little present sparkles. Pulling the quilt around her, she looked around for the others. Apart from their fabulous selves, the living room was deserted.

Draco drew his own inferences. Judging from Blaise's pantlessness, he would be a while, and thus, Kim - _probably_ - would also. Ginny and Harry were probably still asleep in their shared double bed, in their shared soon-ish-to-be-married bliss, and so they wouldn't expect those particular lovebirds for a while, either. Ron, though, partner-less and sleeping alone, really had no excuse.

"Would you like me to fetch Ronald?" Draco offered. "We could eat pudding for breakfast."

"You know," Hermione responded carefully, lifting his arm and arranging it around her shoulders, "I think I'd rather stay here, alone."

"Erm... I could go?"

As he made to leave, she tugged him closer. "Alone, just the two of us," she clarified, and, catching on, Draco settled back into the sofa, Hermione curled against him. Her gift could wait.

It took the others up to an hour to crawl from their resting places and creep out to the sitting room, where Hermione had fallen back to sleep against Draco's chest. Draco, on the other hand, was lying in a state of frozen agony. He couldn't move, or risk waking Hermione and incurring a wrath far more terrifying than any he'd faced before, so he was lying immobile, staring at the brightly wrapped package with his name on it in a colourful scrawl. It was large, it was square, and it was entirely out of his reach. He was _dying._

"Merry Christmas," nodded Harry, as he strolled into the room. "Something wrong? You look like you've eaten an ear wax Bertie Bott."

He was reminded for a moment of the shape of a Bertie Bott's package, but quickly dismissed it as a possibility. Glancing from Draco to his point of focus, Harry quickly surmised his problem.

"Ah. I see."

"_Helpful,_" snarled Draco, overcome with longing for the shiny cube of goodness that _had his name on it._ As he spoke, Harry sat down on the couch, looking rather amused, and picked up the paper, absentmindedly pulling on a paper crown as he flipped to the sports.

"Harry." Draco forced his voice to calm down, to put on a tone of cheerful politeness. It was difficult. "Would you mind-?"

Harry glanced once at Draco's present, and his gaze flicked between it, Draco's best pleading face, and his newspaper.

"Sorry," he said finally. "I don't think the girls would be too pleased if we started with presents until they've arrived."

The mangled sound of disbelief and horror from Draco's mouth seemed just the thing to wake Hermione, and the expression on her face - dazed, confused, and _furious_ - made him think that perhaps waiting another couple of hours mightn't have been such a terrible sacrifice, after all.

"Draco Malfoy," she began to scold, slowly sitting directly upright. He stretched his arms longingly towards the present, but her iron grip on the knee of his trousers held him back.

"But-" he tried to say, gesturing wildly towards the present. His intense desire for presents was reflected in his inability to form a coherent sentence. Until he regained the power of speech, he would have to make do with garbled sign language.

"No," she interrupted, before he'd even had a _chance_ to get out an indecipherable sentence. "You woke me up. That is _not good,_ Draco."

"But it's _Christmas!_" he managed to exclaim, at a pitch loud enough to fetch Blaise, Kim and Ginny from their respective bedrooms.

"Merry Christmas," they chorused, seemingly unphased by the sight before them. Hermione was holding Draco on the couch with her talons, while he struggled in vain. Of course, if he'd _wanted_ to, he could have _easily_ freed himself from her grip, but, seeing as she was a girl an all, he felt it would be cruel to use such excessive force. While Draco underwent such an intense ethical dilemma, Harry sat on the couch, one leg over the other, flipping through the paper with his glasses on the tip of his nose.

Ginny curled up on the couch beside Harry, hunching into a ball and giving off distinct feline airs, especially when Blaise tried to sit on the couch as well. She gave a defensive hiss, and pointed towards an armchair.

Kim seemed perfectly at peace with the newer arrangement, sitting on Blaise's lap like a toddler or a ventriloquist's doll. Blaise fiddled with the waistband of her jeans, and Draco died a little on the inside as Ron stumbled out and ripped into his first present.

"Me next, me next!" he yelled, giving up on his dilemma and elbowing Hermione gently out of the road.

It hit him, in an instant, just as his hands were about to close around his large, beautiful present. The anticipation of receiving a gift had been exciting, but it was dying down, as he identified the strengthening, pulsing feeling in his chest. He didn't care much for his own excitement, anymore, but he _did_ suddenly possess a longing urge to reveal Hermione's gift.

So, rather than ripping the gaudy paper from the present under the tree, he walked the few steps back to the couch and took her by the hand.

"What are you doing?" she asked cautiously, as he helped her into her coat.

"Noth-ing," he sang, wrapping a scarf around her neck.

"Really, Draco," she protested as he began to drag her towards the door. "Where are you taking me?"

"No-where," he answered, in the same sing-song voice, as he thrust a hat onto her head and pulled her out onto the snow-covered front lawn.

"Oh, my God." Her breath was misty as she shielded her eyes from the pale sun, looking up at the roof. He was surprised that she knew where to look, but the brightly-lit fairy lights gave away the position of her Christmas gift.

They heard the trademark jingle of Christmas bells as his reindeer nervously toed the edge of the roof.

"Are you sure?" she called down. "I _really_ don't want to die."

"Go ahead, Bambi, jump!" Draco encouraged, pulling out a box of chocolates and shaking them at her. With an exciting whinny and a heaving crack, the reindeer flew off the edge of the roof, pulling the sleigh he had built himself behind her.

"Draco," Hermione breathed, gloved hands at her mouth. Ribbons of warm breath-mist slipped from the cracks in her fingers, disbelief hanging tangible and misty in the air. "You... I can't believe..."

He pulled down his glove to show her the vicious splinter that had decided to make his thumb its home, just for a little authentication. "See?" he said as she peered down his hand. "Impressed?"

"Very," she said, but her gaze was already back to her sleigh.

He let out a whistle, the sharpest he could muster, and Bambi trotted over on cue.

"I'm going to want a present," the reindeer reminded him in her most condescending tone, "if I'm to heave you two fatties along through the air. It isn't easy, you know, and I'd really advise you skip the Christmas pudding this year."

Paying little to no attention to the sulking animal, Draco held open the hinged little door with a flourish. When Hermione had a spot of difficulty, trying to leap up into the carriage, he used his hands on her waist to boost her up. She settled into the cushioned seat with an air of satisfied delight, and dragged the thick blanket over her legs.

It was easier for him, with his longer legs and enthusiasm, to vault himself onto the seat beside her. His arm slipped around her, she arranged the blanket so that it covered him as well, and everything fit, quite perfectly. Sitting beside her like this, with that look on her face, was like setting the final piece of jigsaw puzzle into place. He snaked his other arm around her front so that his hands clasped around her, and she held up one hand, encased in the warm knit gloves that had been a present from Harry, and rested it on his forearm.

"This is perfect, Draco," she said, twisting her neck so that their eyes met.

He knew, at that moment. He didn't care if Hermione had kissed Neville, he didn't care that she could be a bossy little brat, he would even go so far as to say that he didn't mind when she scolded him for hanging his socks off of lampshades. This was working, and he was willing to go to exceptional lengths to keep it that way.

The sleigh started to move, sliding across the crisp slow at a pace that was a surprising testament to Bambi's willingness to do anything for chocolate. They did a lap of the yard before they had gotten a decent run up, enough for Bambi to spring into the air.

Circling the house as they rose, Draco peered over the edge of the sleigh. The others had followed them out onto the patio, and were standing in a huddle, looking up with their hands shielding their eyes from the grey winter sun.

Bambi pulled upwards with a sharp jerk, causing Hermione to slip and fall against his arm. He caught her and secured her safely, muttering something about how he should have installed seatbelts.

"I'm fine," Hermione assured him, apparently having gotten over her fear of flying which he had conveniently forgotten up until now. She rested her head against his shoulder as they swooped and glided, the bells on the sleigh jingling annoyingly.

"Are the bells annoying you?" he worried. "Wait a second, the blanket isn't covering your toes. We should get two, or a bigger one... I'll look into that tomorrow. Are you comfortable? I was contemplating two layers of padding under the seats, should have followed through. You could sit on me if your arse hurts, just mind you don't fall out because that would be _tragic_, utterly tragic..."

"Draco."

Hermione pressed a finger to his lips, quickly followed by her lips.

"It's perfect."

And you know, with the snow and the bells and Bambi's disgruntled muttering and the occasional yelps from the group below, it really was.


End file.
